


The Peacekeeper

by njmksr



Category: Project Wingman (Video Game)
Genre: Absurdist Humor, Action/Adventure, Angst and Humor, Angst and Tragedy, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Fighter Pilots, Gallows Humor, Gen, Tragedy, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 32,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28485834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/njmksr/pseuds/njmksr
Summary: A pilot from the Federation's International Peacekeeper Exchange Program defects to the Cascadian Independence Force and must bear the consequences of her actions. A story following entirely original characters and contains heavy use of fanon. Work in progress. Act 3/4 and the first two Interludes complete.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	1. Act 1 Chapter 1- The Cell

_Hm,_ the pilot thought. _That patch of paint seems slightly more interesting than the paint around it._

The fluorescent lights were blinding. They went on at 0730 every day and went off at 2200. Without fail, without exception. She had been in this lovely little mostly-windowless box for… four days.

Of course, it was the same day repeated four times, with the same three-raps-and-a-hard-clunk at the cell's only window on the massive steel fire door once more announcing the presence of one of her captors— again, the Lieutenant from Intel— she watched the man walk with dignified poise into the brig cell and preemptively gave her equally elegant and graceful reply: "Blow it out your ass."

"Excuse me?" The Intel officer raised an eyebrow, a little surprised.

"I said, blow it out your ass. I'm not a spy." She stared daggers at him. "I'm here to fucking defect."

"And a good morning to you too, Lieutenant Khoury. Why don't we start with the basics?"

"Fuck you."

"Look, I understand you're frustrated, but this will all be over with much sooner if you answer my questions _honestly,_ Lieutenant Khoury. Or should I say Ms. Khoury? I don't think the Federation would exactly still say you have military rank, if your story is indeed true." The Intel officer scraped the venom-tipped dagger of a confident smile across the young pilot's misery.

The girl sat cross-legged on the concrete floor, annoyed and silent.

She grimaced.

"Ugh. Fine. Nicole Khoury. Union of Atlantic States Navy, on loan to Pacific Federation Air Force International Peacekeeper Exchange Program. Lieutenant. Callsign: IRIS. My plane's HWID is 274.4.4. Eat a dick." An exasperated sigh escaped her lips.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, I'll have to decline that offer. I do, however, have some good news for you."

"Oh? You're going to shoot me? Finally."

"No, Ms. Khoury." He laughed, nervously. "But we've been looking into you some."

"Oh, joy. What did ya, find my laptop? No thanks, I'd rather you guys shoot me. Or just give me back to the Feds, they'll save you the bullet."

"What? No. We did some background checks. At least some of your story checks out. You're getting your first set of restrictions lifted."

"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow, suspicious. "Like what?"

"Well, you'll get some time in the gym, under guard, of course. And you'll get to eat meals in the canteen. Under guard, of course."

"Big fucking upgrade." The girl groaned.

 _Count yourself lucky you're getting anything at all,_ She thought.


	2. Act 1 Chapter 2- The Sandwich

The jumpsuit they provided was a spare CIF flight suit hastily spray-painted orange. An armed Independence Force partisan escorted her down the hallway to the mess hall, and wherever she went, heads turned to stare daggers at her. _Fucking Fed,_ she heard some whisper. _Should have shot that bastard down when we had the chance._

Collecting the bare minimum to qualify as a meal— all she was allowed to take— she sat down at the end of the cafeteria table furthest away from everyone else as she took a bite of the least appetizing sandwich she had ever eaten. No one, save of course for the partisan with the rifle, dared get near her end of the table. But they all stared, and they all cursed her out in hushed tones.

Except one.

A kind looking pilot put his tray down in front of hers. "Hey. Nice to meet ya. Lieutenant Scott Bernitz, CIF."

"Hi." She wasn't in a particularly talkative mood. She looked down at her tray, at the half eaten sandwich that had to have been mostly mayonnaise slathered over a slice of cheese with scraps of meat thrown in.

"What squadron were you in? Before you defected, anyways." Scott smiled at her, reassuring.

"Peacekeeper Black Squadron." She didn't look up.

"Just like I thought," he said, smiling. "You killed my brother, you Fed bitch."

She looked up to meet his eyes. _Finally, an honest one._ "I'm… I'm sorry."

"Is that going to bring Jake back?" He said, with the face of an angel. "Is it, you piece of shit?"

"No." She glanced away, breathing in. "I... _can't_... do anything that would bring your brother back." She stared into the mayo-laden excuse for a sandwich, dejected.

"Then don't fucking _talk_ to me ever again. Burn in hell," he said, a knife-edged smile across his face, and left with the rest of his food.

Nicole shoved the rest of the soggy, sandwich-resembling food item into her face without a word, before dropping it onto her lap as alarm klaxons blared. _Great._ She sighed.

"All alert pilots: scramble," the intercom crackled. "This is not a drill. Report to ready rooms for scramble orders. All other personnel prepare for imminent enemy contact. I say again..."

The intercom droned on, but IRIS had gotten the message. _Great. Just great. We're under attack and all I can do is sit in a jail cell with mayonnaise all over my pants._

As the guard walked over to her, gesturing that it was time for her to go, she caught sight of an officer, a Lieutenant Colonel, jumping out of his chair. "Wait!" She shouted, in his general direction. "I can help! Let me fly, please—"

"Miss," the guard said. "Settle down. Please leave the base commander alone."

"But I can help—"

"Settle. Down. You're being escorted back to your cell now. Sorry about the sandwich."

The funny thing was, she thought, he actually did sound a bit sorry.


	3. Act 1 Chapter 3- The Lieutenant Colonel

Explosions rocked the base and jets roared overhead— not that she could hear much. She leaned up against the concrete of the brig to try to catch the slightest tremor of sound in the thick walls, but all she got was nothingness.

The guard was hunkering down on the other side of the cell, weapon ready in case she tried to pull anything. Apparently, the sturdy construction of the basement made it safer there than out in the hallway.

Nicole sat there nervously, eyeing the large rifle the man carried with him. "Sooo," she said, tapping a finger against the wall. "Wonderful weather we're having."

"Very funny, Miss."

_Wait_ , she thought. _Is he chuckling? Did he actually mean that?_

"But the weather was nicer before the bombs started dropping," the guard said, completely deadpan.

Nicole chuckled. "I think you're right."

As she started to count pockmarks in the wall, an unfamiliar banging on the steel door woke her out of her trance. It wasn't the orderly three-one pattern of knocks that the man from Intel always used. This was someone else, and as an officer poked his head through the tiny window in the heavy slab, the guard jolted to his feet and unlocked the cell. "Lieutenant Colonel," the guard said, saluting. "At ease-" The officer was interrupted by the sound and tremors of an explosion as the blinding fluorescent lights of the brig flickered. The man turned his sights on the defector.

"I'm here to see you," he said. He pointed up at the ceiling, where the Federation's bombs had so kindly converted their boring old fluorescent tubes into strobe lights. "As you can tell, we have a bit of a situation."

She raised an eyebrow. "A bit? How much is _a bit?_ Because I have no idea how this fight is going beyond turning my cell into a rave."

"There's twenty bandits, and we had eight pilots on alert. They scrambled and splashed four Federation planes, but they got three of our pilots as well." The officer sighed. "We just took this base last week. There aren't many combat-capable pilots here."

"...Who's left? You don't mean?" Her brows furrowed, beginning to realize what he was about to ask her.

"Yes, unfortunately. I do. You were yelling at me in the mess hall, weren't you?" The man had a pained expression on his face, as if his better instincts were yelling at him not to do this.

"And you're telling me you trust me?"

"To be perfectly candid," the base commander sighed. "No. I do not. But it's not like I have much of a choice."

"There's no other pilots?" IRIS sounded skeptical. "Nobody at all?"

"The other squadron based here is on mission right now."

"Oh." She walked towards the door before jumping back as the guard raised his rifle up.

"There's a catch," the officer said.

_Ugh. Of course._ "Yeah?" She cocked her head, inquisitive.

"If you want to see the light of day again until we get a proper interrogator on base… You are not landing until you've bagged five Feds. Got it?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You were a Peacekeeper. I know you've got it in you," the officer, whose name tag read CAMARDA, stared daggers at her. "I've seen the markings on the side of your plane. Cascadian roundel and seven planes. You want me to trust you?" He laughed. "Good fucking luck. But put up five Fed kills and you'll be on the right track. Make ace from your own former comrades. Then maybe I'll believe you when you say one of the Feds' most valuable pilots defected."

_Most valuable?_ She scoffed. _I wouldn't put it that way. Not our squadron, anyways._

"That's a lot of kills," she said. "Over half of what I've already got."

"You want your freedom or what?"

"Is that on the table?"

"No. But perhaps a contract is. You do this, and I'll get you an audience with the recruitment liaison to arrange terms." Lieutenant Colonel Camarda crossed his arms.

" _Hmph_."

"This is the best deal you're gonna get, Lieutenant Khoury."

"Fine." She shrugged, scowling. "Send me up. I'll get you your five kills."

"That's the spirit," the Lieutenant Colonel broke into a smile. "Airman, escort her to the hangar before there's nobody left up there to reinforce."


	4. Act 1 Chapter 4- The Dogfight

The pilot walked up to her plane, flight helmet in hand. She climbed up the F/E-18's ladder and started flipping switches as if guided by instinct- a cold start was second-nature at this point. Would she get up there in time? She wasn't sure. Cold starts usually weren't quick.

As she tuned her radio to the right frequency, the CIF pilots seemed to have regrouped, holding their own. Scattered callouts of "Fox two!" and "Guns, guns, guns!" hung against the eerie radio static, popping in and out of existence like a verbal game of whack-a-mole. Nicole caught a glimpse of gunfire ricocheting off the runway across from her hangar, most likely sprayed at a passing fighter.

"ALCON, Armstrong Tower. We've got an extra pilot for you," the smooth voice of the ATC was a comforting distraction from the chaos of battle as she wrapped up her pre-flight procedures. "Lieutenant Khoury, your new radio ID is Polaris Six. You are clear for taxi. Readback and acknowledge."

"Roger, Armstrong Tower. This is Polaris Six, callsign IRIS. Heading to taxi." She prayed silently that no Federation fighter would put a quick end to her CIF piloting career with a lucky bomb or a quick strafe of the runway.

As she gunned it down the runway and pulled back on the stick, she climbed almost directly into a battle. No sooner did she have her landing gear up than she had her radar warning receiver drilling missile alerts into her skull, and she started letting her training kick in and take hold.

"Hang on a sec," a woman's voice identified as Polaris 1, BASH, came in over the radio. "They sent the Fed up to fight with us?"

"Oh, fuck me," the man from the cafeteria, who the radio ID'd as Polaris 5, Burn, chimed in. "She's just gonna kill us and fly away with her friends."

"No," the Federation defector replied. "These bastards aren't my friends."

"Oh yeah?" Burn retorted. "Prove it."

"ALCON, ALCON," the tower interrupted their chatter. "Cut the chatter. Four of the F/E-15s inbound vectoring hot on the hangars. Polaris Five and Six, Take 'em out before they can drop ordinance."

The squadron acknowledged the order. "Well, Fed," Burn snarled. "Looks like you're my wingman. Try not to get _me_ killed like ya did my brother, okay?" The other four pilots converged to cover the two, keeping the Federation fighters in the furball off their tails.

She didn't reply. "Polaris Six, tally four fast-movers. Engaging with Polaris Five."

She took a deep breath. _This is it, right? Maybe the Feds won't execute me if I surrender. Maybe just jail. Jail hasn't been so bad._

_But what the Feds were doing was worse._

She flipped the Master Arm switch. _Fight's on._

As she fiddled with her radar, she got solid locks with her MLAAs and fired. "Polaris Six, Fox 3 by four." These wouldn't miss, unless the F/E-15s wanted to back off from their attack runs. They were already too far committed in her eyes, and as the flight met their demise at the hands of a volley of missiles, she knew now that the Federation would never let her live if she ever wound up under their authority again.

 _Do or die. No other choices._ "Polaris Six, splash four."

"ALCON, ALCON. All air-to-ground threats neutralized," the tower spoke up. "Quick work, Polaris Six."

"That shit doesn't count," Burn pouted. "They had already committed to their runs. Clubbing 'em with an MLAA salvo ain't exactly hard."

"Kills are kills, Burn," BASH said. "Eyes on the prize."

Burn sighed over the radio. "Fine. Kills are kills. But you wasted half your MLAAs."

"You say wasted, I say shedding weight."

"Hmph."

"Cut the chatter." BASH did her best to quash the bickering. "We've still got to clean up the escorts. Split into elements. Stick with your wingman. Good hunting."

Burn's F/C-16 peeled off and turned towards the developing furball over the base, and IRIS followed suit. She weaved and dodged the plane through missile alerts and tracer trails, watching as the ten-on-six furball intensified.

The swarm of fighters carved through the skies, and they were closing to a dangerously close range. _This is going to be a knife fight_. She sighed. _Those are never pretty._ She cued up the standard dogfighting missiles, checked her JHMCS helmet's HUD, and dove into the fireworks after the Fighting Falcon.

 _Alright._ She thought to herself. _What would Zmei do? First rule of a knife fight is to always stay calm. Second rule is to always stay alert._ She swept her head around the Super Hornet's canopy, tallying up the enemies she could see against the ones on her radar. _Third rule?_ She thought. _Third rule of a knife fight is… what did Zmei always say… Oh yeah! Shoot the sonuvabitch._ She picked out a Sk.27 from the crowd and decided to go after it. The other Polarises called shots and kills as they came.

Missile alerts blared as she went defensive, forced to break off her mark. One of the Fed Sk.27's friends was on her tail, and tracers carved open the sky over her canopy. _Fuck,_ she thought. She threw the plane around, evasive, and eventually the other pilot overshot. She felt the sorry excuse for a sandwich bounce around in her stomach and thanked her lucky stars she didn't get airsick.

 _Good._ She smirked. _Just where I want you._

Now, the tables had been turned, and she squeezed the trigger on her stick. "Polaris Six, guns, guns, guns." As the Federation Flanker burst into flame, she pulled away, sighting a new target. "Splash one." She checked her radar.

Pulling her plane onto another Sk. 27's tail, the two dogfighting missiles sat on her wingtips as she waited for the heatseekers' lock tone. The missile growled once it identified the fighter's engines, and a push of a button lit the rocket motor to send the missile on its way. The Flanker went defensive, cutting back on the throttle and dumping flares. _Damn._ She watched the missile curve off into the distance as missile alerts forced her into a defensive turn of her own. _Shot wide._

"Polaris 5, splash one. How's that for a National Guardsman, Fed?" Burn seemed satisfied with himself. IRIS made herself ignore his boast.

Just a few enemy contacts remained, and one of them was squarely in IRIS' sights. The fighter was pulling her away from the others, vectoring squarely towards the nearby valleys of Karyavin. _Trying to get me in the valley, huh? Bold choice._ The terrain would mask radar locks and make approaches difficult. _Looks like it's another outing for the good ol' Vulcan._

She dove into the valley behind the fighter, slicing through the skies close to the terrain. The curves of the valley obscured the other plane as it gunned it through the canyon, and even squeezing off bursts of the autocannon, she couldn't keep her nose on the Sk.27 long enough for a kill. After disappearing behind a particularly sharp corner, the fighter climbed out of the canyon and found itself on IRIS' tail. She pulled hard, pressed back in her seat, trying to shake it. The other fighter didn't let her.

She dove for the deck, hoping the enemy fighter would take the bait as she felt a weightless feeling in her stomach. It did. She just needed to get the plane into her off-boresight angle. Then she could shoot off a missile and force the defensive if not outright kill it.

The Sk.27 just barely stepped into the missile's killzone, and she took what little shot she had as the plane overshot her. The missile careened towards the plane, and missed— but it did its job as the Flanker careened onto the defensive, dumping flares and speeding away from her. It was quickly out of guns range, but she had another option as the Sk.27 swung around to vector hot on the F/E-18 again, readying a missile launch of its own.

"Polaris Six, maddog Fox 3!" The missile didn't have a lock. It didn't need one. The Flanker and her were the only planes this far out from the base, and as the missile's onboard guidance took over, it knew where it was— and where it needed to go.

The missile carved an orange path across the sky, erupting the Sk.27 into a ball of fire. "Polaris Six, splash one."

"Polaris One, splash one. Are we all clear, tower?"

"Polaris One, Armstrong Tower. Radars are clear across the board. RTB."

IRIS smiled to herself. _Nice to know I've still got it._


	5. Act 1 Chapter 5- The Aftermath

As she stepped down the ladder of her F/E-18, she looked over her shoulder to see a crowd of pilots assembled around her in various states of scowling. _So, this is Polaris Squadron._ IRIS took her flight helmet off and tucked it under her shoulder.

Nicole met the eyes of the one in the middle, a stern-looking woman with a Major's insignia. "You." The Major spoke, and the pilot knew she was noting the salute that Nicole had failed to give her superior officer. _Fuck that noise._ The young pilot smirked. _I'm not really military anymore, am I?_

"So, you're the Fed, huh?" The Major crossed her arms and deepened her scowl. "I see why they hold Peacekeepers in such high regard. But I just don't get it."

"Don't get what?" Nicole raised an eyebrow.

Scott interrupted her. "Don't get what, _ma'am._ "

She glared at the only man with the honesty to curse her out to her face with a wicked side-eye and groaned. "What don't you get, ma'am?"

The Major looked at Burn, seemingly as if to say, _that was unnecessary._ "I apologize for the behavior of Lieutenant Bernitz. He doesn't like you very much, and quite frankly, Ms. Fed, I'm inclined to agree. But I think we should at least treat you like a human being, if a shitty one."

"Wow. Thanks, Major."

"I think that's all the goodwill you're going to get, _Peacekeeper._ " The word dripped with all the anger, fury, and rage that the Major wanted to unleash on the younger pilot, the living, breathing embodiment of the Federation and all the pain they had inflicted on Cascadia.

 _Peacekeeper._ Nicole chuckled to herself. _Some grim fucking joke that was._

"Ya know, Lieutenant Bernitz almost went weapons hot on you when you first came here. We were under orders not to engage unless fired upon, given how strange a single fighter without an active transponder was. I stopped him. You just made me feel a little better about that decision today," Major Hawthorne paused. "But I still don't understand why Poster Girl would walk away from it all. Y'all have it pretty good, for a bunch of Feddie zealots."

 _Hmph._ Nicole scowled. "They had us doing some fucked up stuff. I didn't want any part of it. It wasn't what I believed in."

"That so?" The Major raised an eyebrow. "Then what _do_ you believe in? You believe in Cascadia? In our cause?"

Nicole hesitated.

_No. I don't. I don't really care about Cascadia. This is for survival._

"Yeah. I believe in Cascadia." She lied through her teeth, brushing a rogue strand of hair behind her ear. _For survival_ , she thought.

"What a fucking liar," Burn said, glaring at her with eyes full of fury. He turned to the Major. "You can't trust her. She's just going to stab us all in the back. She's killed our people before."

The Major stared down Scott. "Lieutenant, you're dismissed." She shook her head. "For the record, I don't know how much I believe you either. But we're getting nowhere. Airman?" She gestured over the partisan with the rifle. "Escort the Fed to her cell."

Nicole walked away, flight helmet in hand, a rifle pointed at her back.


	6. Act 1 Chapter 6- The Contract

"So," the base CO, Lieutenant Colonel Camarda, sat down smiling at the head of a small folding table that had been set up in Nicole's cell. It was a minor improvement over the cold void of concrete that filled the room with the exception of the bed, sink, and toilet, and the pilot looked at her new furnishings with a glimmer of hope.

Things were finally looking up. _Up-ish, at least._ As she slid out the seat from the table and sat down on a regular old chair for the first time in seemingly eternity, she smiled. _Up-ish is good enough for me. Good enough for now, anyways._

" _So_ ," the Lieutenant Colonel said, clearing his throat. "Ms. Khoury, are you with us, or still up in the sky chasing bandits?"

She jolted back into the here and now and realized she had been daydreaming. "Uh-huh. Feet on the ground, last I checked." She made a scene of looking down at her feet and smirked. "So, why the redecorating?" She gestured to the table.

"Because contract negotiations don't usually happen on a concrete floor, Ms. Khoury." The CO shook his head. "We met briefly earlier. I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Camarda. My friends call me JC. You can call me Lieutenant Colonel Camarda, or 'sir'."

Nicole leaned back in her chair. " _Contract negotiations?_ Oh, so here's where I make the deal to rake in the dough as a merc?" She picked at a fingernail with her thumb, paying little attention to Camarda. "Sounds sweet."

"No. Not exactly." The man chuckled. "Here's where I let you know that under Cascadian law, you're a war criminal, and that you have no leverage whatsoever in these negotiations."

"Short and one-sided, huh? Think you could at least buy me dinner first?" The smirk was starting to fade from her face, but she'd be damned if she didn't go down without a fight. "What if I just don't fight for you, huh? That's leverage."

"Well, your squadron was complicit in attacks against civilian centers, no?"

"Uh, yeah? That's why I defected!" Nicole scowled at the CO. "Where are you going with this?"

"You know what the punishment for the willful attack of protected sites is in Cascadia, right?"

"...Jail, right?" She raised an eyebrow.

Camarda laughed. "You wish. Starts with '.45' and ends with 'caliber'."

Nicole's smug demeanor faded immediately with a simple "...oh."

"Yep. More than likely, we'd hand you over to the Feds and save ourselves the bullet."

"But I left! I defected when we did that!" Nicole's face was flushed with frustration, her hand braced against the table in shock.

"And? It happened before you left your squadron, did it not? You have blood on your hands, Ms. Khoury. But I think we can help you wash it off." Camarda smiled.

"...Fuck." She hung her head with a huff.

"So, would you like to hear the terms of your contract, Ms. Khoury?"

"F-fine." She shivered in anticipation, stuttering slightly, awaiting the news of her future.

"Upon the conclusion of the War of Cascadian Independence, the Contract between the Cascadian Independence Force, hereby referred to as the CIF, and the Signatory, Ms. Nicole Khoury will terminate;" the CO held up a sheet of paper, reading off it.

"The following agreements constitute the Contract: One, the CIF will provide safe haven, food, housing, equipment, maintenance, and other appropriate provisions for the Signatory, who will remain under restrictions until the receipt of an appropriate security clearance; Two, the Cascadian Government will issue a full legal pardon of the Signatory on termination of this Contract, as well as Cascadian citizenship for the Signatory and her family; and Three, the Signatory will operate as a member of CIF-77, Polaris Squadron for the duration of the Contract unless otherwise transferred."

Nicole groaned. "So I'm still a prisoner, and I don't even get the usual mercenary payout, cash, cordium, or gold…"

Camarda smirked. "I'm sure the Federation has plenty of lead for you, if you wish to try your luck with returning. This is the best deal you're gonna get."

"...Point taken."

"I knew you'd see the light eventually, Ms. Khoury. Sign on the line, why don't ya?"

As the CO handed her the pen, she flicked it across the page with a nervous, grim frown.

_No going back now._

_...but maybe…_

_There's room to go forwards. Just like Uncle Brian always said._


	7. Interlude 1 Chapter 1- The AWACS

"...You've got to be fucking shitting me." Nicole stared at the AWACS operator, holding up the shirt. " _This_ is what they're issuing me?"

"...Yeah, looks like it." The man, a tall, lanky CIF Major with the callsign Bluejay, put on a sympathetic face to mask what would have been laughter. "Logistics have been incredibly strained since we started fighting the Feds. We've been focusing on making sure our supply lines for food and weapons are intact first. Clothes and other provisions…?"

"Not so much, I'm guessing? I didn't exactly pack any clothes when I defected."

"Nope. Take your pick."

The C/D-10, painted out in the orange-colored livery of one of the Federation's most prominent shipping companies, was a treasure trove of the mundanities of life. It had been intercepted by the Federation and forced to land at the airbase when the war began, and when the CIF took the base, the warehouse of a plane came with it. Clothes, trinkets, crates of spray paint, and even a few televisions and game consoles lined the palletized shelving of the plane, creating a feeling of the world's most cramped department store.

Unfortunately, most of this department store's merchandise seemed to be off-brand. Nicole stared at the shirt in question, pilfered from a box in the center of the plane. "Why does _every_ shirt on this plane have something to do with fishing? And why are they all weirdly… aggressive?"

Bluejay shrugged. "I dunno. Feds took all the good stuff."

She sighed. _More bullshit to put up with. Of course._ Sifting through the pile of shirts, she found one that read "WOMEN WANT ME - FISH FEAR ME." _But at least it's funny bullshit._

Nicole tried, desperately, to stifle a maniacal laugh. The guard at the other end of the plane raised an eyebrow as she collapsed against the box of shirts, guffawing.

"...Are you okay, Lieutenant?" The AWACS held out a hand for her to take, if she needed it.

She managed to get herself together long enough to stutter out a "N-no." between fits of laughter, ignoring the hand. "This… this is all too much."

"Too much, huh?" He smirked. "Yeah, I've been there."

"Why are they all about fishing?" She was almost on the verge of tears. " _Why!?_ "

"You know, this all reminds me of a story…" Bluejay pulled a bullet casing from his pocket. "Back in the day, my friends and I from the Guard would go fishing in the Strait, out a few miles down the coast. We'd get beers and hop on one of my buddy's boats— he was a Cascadian Coastie captain, had his own cutter and everything— and we'd go out into international waters, shoot at birds, get drunk, maybe do some of his coke, and just fuckin' fish."

Nicole stared at the deck of the cargo liner, hyperventilating. "Is my life just one huge fucking joke now? Am I just the punchline to some sick fucking story?"

If Bluejay heard her, he didn't show it, putting his hands on his hips and launching into a triumphant tone. "Anyway, one of our buddies, right, he was some crazy specops guy. And he had this dumbass idea, to toss a grenade in the water, right? A live fuckin' grenade, can ya believe that? Said the explosion would kick up some fish."

Nicole banged her head into the box. "I'm gonna go fucking insane. I'm gonna go fucking insane—"

"And that wacky son of a bitch did it. Right while we were next to a Feddie shrimp boat from Magadan. Can ya believe that?" Bluejay laughed. "Anyway, they called the Coast Guard, and since we were in international waters, they couldn't do shit. So they sent the Navy,"

"Oh my god, would you shut up?" Nicole pounded a fist into the deck of the plane. "I'm trying to have a mental breakdown in peace."

* * *

"...And they were shooting at us, right? _BLAM, BLAM BLAMBLAMBLAM!_ Yeah, like that. Wait, I forgot one. _BLAM!_ Yeah, yeah, that's it. Big fuckin' guns, too. Like the one this is from." He held up the shell casing, and it had only taken him forever to tie the story back to the shell casing. "Fuckin'...idunno. .50 BMG and shit."

Nicole had lost the will to do anything but cry, lying in the fetal position on the floor of the cargo liner, half-covered in a slumping mountain of T-shirts bearing slogans of "LIFE'S SHORT, BUT MY BASS IS BIG", and "I LOVE TO FISH BUT MY GREATEST CATCH WAS MY WIFE", crushed her under the absurdity of the moment. She couldn't hear everything the AWACS was saying, and she honestly didn't want to.

"—And I said to the bastard, 'HELL NO', and I kicked him right in the nuts,—"

_This guy's insane._ She hung her head in her hands. _This guy's fucking insane._

"—And that's how I got arrested by Cascadian authorities under a warrant from five separate Federation states."

Nicole struggled to her feet, before slumping back down and flopping face-first into the pile of shirts, her vision obscured by "OF COURSE I CUM FAST, I HAVE FISH TO CATCH!". She had no idea what to say. _What the hell do I say to that?_ He didn't seem to notice.

She finally collected her thoughts into the only response she could form. "...What? The fuck?"

The AWACS laughed. "I know, right?"

" _None_ of that story made sense." She flopped onto her back, unwilling or unable to get to her feet. "How do you even have that shell casing? How is _that_ , a handgun round, supposed to be .50 BMG? How come a fleet of Fed ships deploying over a fucking shrimp boat wasn't on the news? And what the _ever-living fuck_ does your bullshit have to do with my life right now?"

The AWACS finally looked down at her, a neutral expression on his face.

" _Life's_ bullshit sometimes." He shrugged. "Embrace it."

The guard returned from outside the plane. "Time's up, LT," he said to Nicole, nodding towards the door. "Hope ya got your stuff." She scrambled to grab the closest shirts to her, regardless of what they said. _Well, looks like I'm stuck with the dumb ones,_ she thought to herself. _Woo-fuckin'-hoo._

"Oh hey, Bluejay," the guard said. "What bullshit are ya spewin' today?"

"Oh, nothing much," the AWACS turned, a knowing glint in his eye. "I was just telling her about the time I caused a delay at Prospero International, shutting down global trade for thirty minutes—"

Nicole jumped to her feet and _ran._


	8. Interlude 1 Chapter 2- The Fishing Trip

Fishing. _Why did it have to be fishing?_ If the shirts had been overly aggressive about anything else, it wouldn't have been bad. Yet there were painful and beautiful memories attached to those shirts, memories of a simpler and lost time, memories which she would rather keep buried. On the other end of the cell, across from her bunk, the pile of shirts' taglines mocked her silently. DUMB BASS, one called her. At least, she could swear it was making fun of _her._ She pondered her life's choices and she sure _felt_ like a bit of a dumb bass.

As she tried to force herself to sleep, she found a memory creeping at the edge of her consciousness, and she found herself on the water, the harmonious sway of a boat's hull beneath her feet, a bright eyed child of fourteen years old.

* * *

The stars were bright that night, and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.

The mid-sized fishing boat sat moored off a small collection of islands on the southern coast of the Union of Atlantic States, a last stop before hitting the open waters of the northern Atlantic. The waves, subtle reminders of the mighty ocean beyond the archipelago, rocked the hull gently back and forth, though that didn't bother the man lying on the deck, staring up at the twinkling lightscape and taking in the sound of the summer wind and the mercifully calm waters.

The door to the cabin slid open, and a young girl in a red sweatshirt sat down next to the man. She had known him for as long as she could remember simply as 'Uncle Brian', though they weren't related— a fact that was painfully clear by appearances alone. Her father, she remembered, told her that she had saved Uncle Brian's life from a heart attack as a paramedic, and that after he had been discharged from the hospital he had found the paramedic that had saved his life, on the wishes of his son, so that he could thank him personally. They had discovered their apartments were on the same block, and their children at the same middle school— and eventually, family friendship became family.

She, too, joined him, her sight fixed on the stars. "H...hey, Uncle Brian. I… couldn't sleep."

"Tonight's not a bad night to lose a few hours," the man said, the subtle hint of his Oceanian origins slipping through his adopted East Coast accent. "Clearest I've seen it in a long time. What's on your mind, Nicole?" He turned his gaze to his adopted niece. "Bad dream? Don't like the way the boat rocks?"

"No," she replied, her vision fixed on the heavens above. "I just wanted to see them from something wider than the window in the roof."

He chuckled. "I get that, I get that."

The constellations danced across the deep blue overhead as the boat gently swayed in the waves. Nicole traced her vision across them, using her finger to piece together the ones she could remember off the top of her head.

"They're different back where I'm from, you know."

"Yeah, below the Equator, right?"

"Mhmm. Back in Oceania." He tucked his hands under his head. "Beautiful country. Wonderful people. I want you to see it someday, the way it should be. Not the way it is," he said.

She seemed more fixated on the stars. "I wanna go up to space one day. Be an astronaut, like the real famous ones on TV when the space shuttle launches." She beamed. "But you gotta be a pilot or a scientist first. And I wanna be a great pilot like you. So are you gonna tell me another story? I need to know everything about flying."

He sighed, chuckling. "Oh, I see what you're really out here for. You want more of Uncle Brian's war stories, don't you?"

"N-no."

He stared at her.

"Ugh… yeah, I do, Uncle Brian. But I want to look at the skies too."

"Lemme think up a good one to tell you," he said. "Nothing too scary. It's past your bedtime, and your mother will have my neck if I spook you."

"Ooh, ooh, what about one with your buddy?"

"You always do love the Larry stories, don't you?" Brian chuckled. "I think you two would get along well."

"What happened to him? I wanna meet him." She looked at her uncle with wide eyes.

"He had to… go somewhere else, Nicole, when we went into hiding. The Federation made us split up. One day."

"That's really mean of the Federation. Forcing friends apart. Dad never said the Federation ever did anything like that."

"Let's just say there's a reason I don't tend to talk politics with your old man," Brian smirked. "Keep this between us like usual, remember?"

"Okay!" She nodded. "I'm good at keeping secrets."

"That's right, you and Josh are good at keeping secrets. Y'know, I don't actually think I've told him this story. It's about Larry's craziest fight, and about fighting airships."

"Woah…" Nicole's jaw dropped. "You guys fought airships?"

"Yeah. And we won." Brian smirked. "So one day, right, we were helping friendly planes evacuate an airbase. The Feds threw a whole aerial fleet at us— lead by a carrier, with a few destroyers— but the base's squadron managed to whittle it down to a few escorts and a carrier by the time it was our turn to fight."

"That must have been a really big fight." She was trying to imagine it, the missiles and the tracers flying across the skies of an imagined Oceanian outback afternoon. She couldn't. "So there must have been like… a hundred missiles in the air!"

Brian chuckled. "Felt like a little more than a hundred, Nic. They sure were some fireworks."

"Yeah… if fireworks killed people."

"Anyway, we show up and get into the fray, right, and there's just the carrier and its escorts, but the friendlies had gotten so badly chipped away that it was all they needed. So Larry and I focus on taking it out." He held his hand out like a plane. "We zoomed off and got in real close." He held up his other hand, a stand-in for a _Suriname_ -class air carrier. "Larry was focusing on keeping the fighters off my tail while I took out the airship's defenses— close-in defense guns and air-to-air missile launchers, right?— and eventually, right, I've picked them all off. It's just a matter of getting enough firepower on target— and it takes a lot— to take it down… and I look over to see what Larry is doing, and he's got a F/S-15 stuck on his tail. You remember those, right? Agile Eagles, we called 'em. And we were just in regular Eagles."

"Yeah, I remember! The ones with the canards." She loved to learn about planes, rockets, ships— anything mechanical, and Brian had happily taught her much of what he knew to at least a basic level. "Those ones look cool."

"Yeah, canards and thrust vectoring— y'know, the thing where the engines can move the nozzle? Anyway," Brian shook his head. "They're not so cool when you're staring one down in a knife fight."

"So what did Larry do? He went into hiding like you, so he couldn't have died there."

"You're right, he didn't die there." A knowing smile. "He _lived_ there, in pretty spectacular fashion if I do say so myself. The man pulled off the craziest maneuver kill I've ever seen."

"What's a maneuver kill?" Nicole raised an eyebrow.

"It's when you win a dogfight not by blowing the other guy up, but by getting them to crash."

"Huh. That's neat. But I thought pilots were trained not to crash?"

"It's not exactly easy to maneuver kill someone."

"So how did Larry do it?" Nicole scooted up closer to Brian in anticipation of hearing the end of the story, watching him diagram the battle with his hands.

"The most genius way, or dumbest way, I've ever seen." Brian slammed his hands into each other. "He flew through the airship."

"He did _what?_ How?!" Nicole jumped up to her feet. "That's crazy!"

"Yeah, no kidding! You remember when I showed you all the different classes of airship? The _Suriname'_ s like the _Littoria_ s— got a gap in its wings. Larry flew right through that, and pulled up. He managed to get the guy following him to slip up, and he slammed into the airship's wings. Took out a wing on the airship, too, and that wound up crashing— Larry got credit for killing the airship too."

"Woah." The young girl sat down, stunned. "That's really cool."

Brian turned his attention once more to the stars. "Sure was."

"I wanna fly like that one day." She stared at the sky, longingly. "Then I'm gonna be the greatest astronaut ever. I'm gonna go to Mars."

Brian was silent, staring into the stars. "If you're really as dead set on being a pilot as you always say, I guess I can't stop you. But I hope you don't have war stories when you're my age."

"Why not? They sound cool, Uncle B."

"They're not cool, Nic. War's awful. I just haven't told you about the terrifying, horrible, brutal bits because I want to protect you from them. You're fourteen, for God's sake." He shook his head. "One day, you'll understand. But if you ever do fly combat, promise me something." He sat up, turning to face her with an outstretched pinky.

"Alright, Uncle Brian."

"That you'll never fly for the Federation. Can you promise me that? That you'll use your place in the skies for good."

"I promise. Pinky swear." She smiled. Adults didn't usually pinky swear, so this had to be important.

The mercenary smiled. "Now, let's take in the stars."

They fell asleep on the deck, smiles on their face and eyes turned skywards.

* * *

She couldn't sleep in the bunk, a pained scowl on her face and teary eyes turned cellwards.

As they fell down her face, she wiped the tears away by burying her head into her pillow and screaming. _He was right to cut me out of his life. I broke that promise to chase glory. I betrayed him. That's who I am, right? A liar. A traitor. I've betrayed everyone who's ever trusted me._ She sobbed and shrieked into the pillow. _That's not who I want to be. But do I even know how to be someone better?_

She stared at the velcro Cascadian flag patch on her flight suit, a fresh addition. A symbol of what could be a fresh start. A chance to change.

_I don't know if I know how to be better. But I'll figure it out._


	9. Interlude 1 Chapter 3- The FNG

The morning at Armstrong Air Force Base greeted her with blue skies and the liberty to see them.

Nicole had finally been granted the freedom to move about the base- within her curfew, anyways, and always accompanied by the CIF guard. He was friendly enough, but she could never get comfortable with the feeling of being watched; especially when the watchman in question, however kind, looked like he could break her in half with his bare hands. He didn't say much, though, and for that she was glad. It made it slightly easier to pretend that there wasn't a fully loaded rifle within six feet of her at all times.

As she pushed open the door, she took in the atmosphere of the recreation room. She had been told to be there, at the pool table, at 0900 that morning by the Major, and BASH was not someone Nicole particularly wanted to disappoint. _At least_ she _didn't want to kill me._

Five pilots stared up at her, gathered around the pool table- which at the moment was covered up by a collapsible ping-pong table. They were the same five from the hangar after the skirmish, but three of them didn't talk to her there. One of them, a black-haired girl who was slightly shorter than her, was the first to break the silence.

"Hey, FNG."

_Fuckin' New Guy._

She was back at square one- if even. _Half the people in this squadron think I'm gonna stab them._ She sighed. "Yeah?"

The girl, whose flight suit read _DAGGER_ , slid a can across the ping-pong table. "We're outta coffee. Drink up."

Nicole grabbed the can off the table as one of the other squad members, a dirty blond guy with the scruffy beginnings of a beard, dropped her flight helmet in front of her. She was too busy inspecting the can to notice. "Uh, guys?" She looked at the other pilots, who all had their helmet and an identical can out on the ping-pong table. "You all… read… the label on this thing, right? It's got a warning on it. Wasn't Wired recalled? Unsafe for human consumption?"

"Yeah," the dirty blond, _JACKAL_ , replied. "We know. It definitely causes cancer. But it's all we got. Unless… You didn't stash any coffee in your plane before ya defected, did you?"

Nicole sighed, popping open the can. _Fuck it. I'll probably take a Sidewinder to the face before the cancer gets me, anyways._ The carcinogen-laden energy drink- _No,_ she thought, _Energy Beverage Product_ ,'s packaging was abhorrently cheerful for something that was going to take at least ten years off her life. **WIRED!® CITRUS SHOCK™** , the can declared. **TIRED? GET WIRED!®** _Well,_ she mused. _I am tired._

"So…" Nicole took swigs from the can, a foul-tasting concoction that felt like battery acid going down. "Real chatty today, everybody."

Scott crossed his arms in protest, refusing to look her in the eyes.

"Well," the Major said, brushing a strand of red hair aside. "You've been the topic of some… heated discussion."

"That's an understatement," Burn mumbled. BASH stared at him disapprovingly. "Can it, Lieutenant Bernitz. You were the source of half of it."

"Yes ma'am." Scott huffed, before taking a spiteful swig of the heavily caffeinated liquid poison.

"Look," the last member of the squadron she hadn't met, a pilot with the callsign _ZIP_ on his flight suit, put his hand down on the table to get her attention. "You're… in the squad. But you've got a history, to say the least, and half of us still think you're a spy."

"So you called me here to… tell me you don't trust me?" Nicole raised an eyebrow.

"Me? Quite frankly I don't give a shit." Zip shrugged. "Not everyone shares my apathy, though." As if on cue, Zip and Jackal stared at Burn and Dagger. Jackal broke his glare and turned to Nicole. "Well, FNG, you deserve at least to know what you're doing here. This is your naming ceremony."

She pointed to the label on the front of her flight helmet. "I… already have a callsign."

BASH and the rest of the squadron started to laugh. "You have a Feddie callsign. From Feddie pilots. That shit doesn't fly here," she told Nicole. "You need a CIF callsign."

Nicole rubbed her eyes, black bags saddled beneath them. _I'm not awake enough for this shit._ She took a swig of the Energy Beverage Product. _Why the fuck is it called that, anyways? Could they not, like, legally call it a drink or something?_ She started to feel a buzz behind her eyeballs, and turned over the can to realize the drink contained 160 milligrams of caffeine and _far_ too much taurine. _Well… I guess it works?_

"So… what are you thinking?" She was running on three hours of sleep, but Wired!® was doing its best work to keep her awake. The other pilots stared uncomfortably. _Who's gonna say it?_ They seemed to be screaming silently at each other. Finally, Burn decided to break the silence.

"We decided on Spook. Because I'm pretty sure you're a spy."

The other pilots stared at him. "What?" He shrugged. "I was just being honest."

Nicole gave him a blank look. "You know I killed six Feds the other day, right? Actually… Well, fuck, it was more like ten, 'cuz four of 'em were two-seaters. You still think I'm a spy, huh?"

It looked like he was about to spit. "I think you're a damn good spy."

BASH grabbed Burn by the shoulder. "Cut it out, Lieutenant. She's part of the squadron, whether we like it _or not._ "

"Lay off," Jackal said. "You don't even know if it was her. There were eight people-"

"Does it matter?" Dagger interrupted him, banging a fist on the table. "She's a fucking Fed."

"I'll take my chances." Burn snarled, snapping his arm back from the Major.

"Look," Zip sighed. "As the squadron's executive officer, if you're not gonna say it, Major, I might as well. I don't care if you two play nice on the ground, because that's where this shit's staying, you got me? You get in your plane and you two are _wingmen_ , not enemies. Or else both of you are gonna eat an AMRAAM. You don't have to like it. You just gotta live with it."

Nicole nodded. Scott groaned. "Yes, sir."

"Good," Zip replied. "We've got a mission briefing at 1300. Spook," He held out a piece of duct tape, the word SPOOK hastily marked in permanent ink on the grey side. "That's for your helmet."

She slapped the makeshift sticker over her old callsign. _Spook, huh?_ She couldn't help but feel a little jaded about it all, having mustered up the courage to abandon her comrades for the warm welcome of a kick in the face. _Well,_ she thought. _Don't like it. But Zip's right. I'm gonna have to live with it._


	10. Act 2 Chapter 1- The Briefing

"Alright," Lieutenant Colonel Camarda took the podium. "CIF-77, CIF-28, let's talk details."

He gestured to the screen, an old copy of TacScape booting in the background. Version 1.3.1. The software was easily eight years old by now, but it worked. Usually.

**/ERROR/: CANNOT CONNECT TO TACSCAPE™ LICENSING SERVER** , the software announced. **RETRYING…**

Now, it seemed, was an unusual time.

The cycle continued indefinitely, and Camarda pounded the podium with a fist. "God damn thing hasn't worked since Solana went on a jamming spree." Nicole shifted uneasily in her chair. _Oops,_ she thought to herself. _My bad. To be fair, I didn't know we were the bad guys when I helped the Feds take Solana._

"Well, I guess that gets us to our next topic. Solana's the whole damn reason I called you here today. As you may or may not have noticed, satellite recon isn't exactly possible when you can't connect to any satellites. We've picked up intel regarding something worrying in an area near the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone from a group of mercenaries who were sent in to clear the place out, and… well, we have more questions than answers." Camarda walked over to the corner of the room to grab his backup plan, a projector. "Major, would you give me a hand? This overhead's ancient."

BASH and JC lugged the overhead projector into place and fiddled with it until blurry pictures of large amounts of construction equipment came into view, and the traces of what looked like a runway rose out of the rock like a streak of ink against a red-brown page.

"We have no idea why, but the Feds appear to be building a small airbase about a mile west of the, well, now ruined, cordium extraction plant." The Lieutenant Colonel shuffled another picture into place on the overhead, a translucent map of the general area annotated in dry-erase marker. "These pictures are outdated. A few days old. And they seemed pretty much done with the facility as it was… There's only one thing we know for sure, and that's because we got one clear picture out of the whole thing." A cargo container sat along the edge of the runway, painted in the stark white and black logo of Icarus Armories.

"Icarus?" Dagger raised an eyebrow, speaking out of turn. "Aren't they the Feds' crazy weapons dev people?"

"Please, Lieutenant Ashido, there will be time for questions after I'm done talking." JC glared, well, daggers.

"If Icarus Armories has anything to do with this airstrip, we _have_ to shut it down," the base CO continued. "That's where you all come in. This is a search and destroy mission. First, document what you can regarding the facility. Then, blow it to hell and back. CIF-28, Cygnus Squadron? You'll be kitting your Tomcats for air-to-ground. If there's one thing we have a lot of here, it's bombs." He shifted his weight around, nervously. "CIF-77. Polaris. You'll be tasked to cover Cygnus against any air threats that may arise. Questions?"

Jackal raised a hand. "Sir, is it safe to be dropping that much ordinance next to that much cordium?"

"Well, Captain Hyder," the CO answered. "It's not _right_ on top of it. As far as we can tell from radio chatter the mercs overheard, the cordium extraction facility followed their safety procedures and doused that region of the Exclusion Zone with enough neutralizing reagent to calm things down a little. I don't think we have to worry about lighting the place off." The officer chuckled. "I wouldn't play with fire like that. Next?"

Zip raised a hand.

"Yes, Captain MacTavish?"

"Are there any rules of engagement regarding any remaining Federation-occupied cordium extraction equipment the mercs might have missed?"

"Yes, Captain. Remember that at the end of the day, that's our cordium there. We'll need it once this war is over."

"Any more questions?" The CO scanned the room. None of the CIF-28 pilots seemed confused. "Alright then. CIF-77, I've heard about your new member. Don't have any blue-on-blue incidents up there, okay?" He stared at Burn. "That wasn't just directed at her."

"Yes, sir." Scott grimaced, annoyed.

"Alright. Dismissed. Good hunting, CIF!"

The pilots filed out into the ready rooms, grabbed their kit, and scrambled to their planes. It was time to take to the skies once again, and she wouldn't spend one more unnecessary second with her feet on solid ground.


	11. Act 2 Chapter 2- The Caldera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The following chapter was written in collaboration with my friend Apostle (who does not publish his work, so I can't add him as a contributor). We hope you enjoy it!

The flight to Yellowstone was annoyingly long.

She had flown longer to missions before, but there was something, and she couldn't put her finger on what, that was uniquely annoying about _this_ flight.

"Are we there yet?" A suavely irritating man spoke over the comms. "Are we there yet?"

Jackal's voice crackled over the radio. "Polaris 1, Polaris 3 requesting permission to speak freely."

BASH responded quickly. "Permission granted. Go ahead, Jackal."

"Dude," Jackal said, irate. "You're our goddamn AWACS. You of all people should know if we're there."

"...Point taken, Captain."

IRIS sighed. At least the pestering was better than storytime.

"We've still got a ways to go," Bluejay droned in that silky-smooth ' _I'm an AWACS operator!'_ voice. "The midair refuel was our halfway point. We're about three-quarters there. We've got plenty of miles left to go… So, how about a story from your ol' buddy Bluejay?"

The comms lit up with a flurry of groans.

"So, right, I was running from the cops in Presidia- this was after the fishing thing, by the way..."

* * *

As the ground below them turned to charred rock and the orange-toned glow of lava lit up the sky in the distance, Bluejay was only just finishing his story. "...And I was standing there in court, right, defending myself, all lawyer-like. Suit and tie and everything."

"Do you even own a suit, Bluejay?" Dagger raised an eyebrow.

"...Okay, fine. One of those suit and tie t-shirts. Anyway," he paused, and IRIS took the time to snicker to herself. _Now that,_ she thought, _I'd pay to see._

"You know most people who defend themselves go to prison, right?" Zip sighed. "Bluejay, you dumbass."

"...You remember where I was before the CIF picked me up, right? In the good ol' slammer. Bluejay. A jailbird. What a travesty that was. So they were prosecuting me on drug trafficking charges, because they couldn't get me for the shrimp boat thing-"

IRIS decided to join in. "Yeah. Because the fishing story never _happened_ , Bluejay."

"Did too!" The AWACS answered in an indignant tone. "But they made up these drug trafficking charges that were like, totally untrue, right? And I fought them off! All, like, ' _Objection!_ ' and all that legal shit."

"So why did you get thrown into prison?" Burn sounded skeptical.

"...Turns out you actually gotta have a grounds for objecti- hold on, we're here. Time to cut the chatter, sorry y'all."

The squadron sighed in relief.

"Alright, Cygnus Squadron, you'll be going in first. Head for the hillside airfield and begin reconnaissance mission. Get some good pictures- really make some memories, guys." The AWACS turned his attention to the other squadron. "Polaris, break and establish a perimeter CAP around the target site. Doesn't look like there's any fighters scrambling, so looks like you'll be sitting on your hands today."

"You wanna tell me I sat through your yakkin' and I don't even get a fight, Bluejay?" Dagger grumbled.

"Looks like it," BASH said. "No use complaining. No bandits means no losses."

"Well, except to SAMs-"

"Can it, Zip. Don't jinx us."

"If anybody jinxed us," Zip fired back, "It was you, Major. No bandits? Any second now, one of them'll come outta nowhere in some crazy Icarus Armories plane and blast us all to bits."

The Major huffed.

"Polaris, be advised," The AWACS gave the following silence a rude interruption. "She jinxed ya. Bogeys, launching from… Wait, am I getting this right? What the hell?"

"AWACS Bluejay, Polaris 1. Repeat your last."

"Polaris, they're launching from inside the hillside about five miles south." Bluejay shook his head. "Tally four bogeys, F/C-16s all. They've been using the maintenance tunnels from the cordium refinery to hide alert fighters, dammit!"

No wonder, then, that the airfield had seemed so ramshackle, barely fit for half a squadron to belly-land on; the Federation squadrons were operating out of the camouflage-netted tunnels in the hillsides far below, concealed from thermals until their igniting engines lit like a sudden swarm of fireflies on sensors.

It was as if in the space of a moment, the rolling, barren ground had spurred itself into life, as the first white-clouded contrails cut across the sky in the distance.

"ALCON, ALCON, reading missile locks from ground-based defenses and interceptors- tally six F/C-16 now. Break, break!" Bluejay shouted over comms. "And dammit Tom, where's my tape deck! You know I can't focus without music. Yeah, the tape marked PW! That good sh-" The AWACS realized his talk button was held down, and let it go.

 _What's the airfield for, then?_ The thought hung in IRIS' mind as she punched the stick sideways, rolling to break off and engage the inbound fighters. The Tomcats from Cygnus Squadron broke their formation, too.

"Polaris 1, Cygnus 1." A voice came over the radio. "We're beginning our bombing runs to neutralize enemy SAMs and triple-A. We're trusting you to keep those Vipers off our ass, alright? Good hunting."

The Major responded in a brisk, professional tone. "Cygnus 1, Polaris 1. Understood. Good hunting."

The distant contrails seemed so ineffectual at this range- as if one could reach out of the cockpit with a hand and brush them away, specks of white against the blue. Then, the AWACS' words were proved prophetic; six contrails split into eighteen, the smaller sparks spinning by the evading Tomcats as if their seeker warheads were still hunting for prey. All missed, one slipping close enough to the cockpit of a diving aircraft that its motor, still furiously burning, glowed like a sun before falling away and impacting into the roughened ground below.

One star blinked out to be replaced by another, and the Vipers were still coming. The ephemeral suddenly became real, each of the six true trails now spear-tipped to the naked eye by a fighter in dusky Federation camouflage.

IRIS had a realization. "Bluejay, Polaris 6. I've got an idea."

"Copy, Polaris 6. Go ahead."

"My plane's radio's still programmed with the Feddie encryption codes. Think we could listen in, pipe it through?"

"Damn, I didn't think of that. Go ahead, Spook. Let's do some listenin-in'. Listenin'? Listenin' in? Eh, you get the idea."

"The Spook's eavesdropping," Burn mused. "Who woulda' guessed."

"Cut the chatter, Polaris 5. If I want to hear you run your mouth I can any time. I care about what the Feds got to say." Bluejay replied.

The radio crackled, passing through the Federation comms on a second channel.

At first, the comms were only a low hiss of static echoing over the radio, then solidified into a young man's calm voice a moment later. "Ground, this is Morpho; we're engaging Cascadian forces now. No mercenary IFFs present. Is Gold on station?"

"Negative, Morpho Three. Continue engagement against Cascadian attackers; ignore the escorts. Will update on the sun."

"Confirm all, Ground."

The intercept formation suddenly narrowed - where it had split off, going wide to avoid MLAA locks and tie Polaris up in a half-dozen individual dogfights, now the Federation pilots moved with elegant skill into a single spearhead like the spread fingers of one hand closing into a clenched fist, as if they were aiming to punch straight _through_ the Cascadians. Thermals flared suffocatingly bright as the Vipers, too close by half, kicked their afterburners on and accelerated.

The pilots of Polaris converged on the F/C-16s, almost to say, _ignore us at your own risk._ "Polaris, break and find a partner, we're running man-to-man today."

The pilots acknowledged the order.

"Polaris 6, engaging." IRIS picked the F/C-16 at the right edge of the formation, thumbing the selector switch to her dogfighting missiles, not that she intended to use them. _Just in case._

The heatseeker growled as it found its target, the single engine of the Viper standing out against the background heat like a glowstick in a nightclub. She ignored it, the ravenous machine hungry to kill. _No sense wasting it,_ she thought. _Guns should do just fine._

The rest of the squadron seemed to have the same idea. She squeezed off a burst of the Hornet's Vulcan and watched as smoke trailed from the Viper off her nose. It broke off not of its own accord, losing control as an explosion rocked her view.

Her plane's missile alert system went wild. _What? I thought Cygnus was supposed to be handling those?_ As she checked her radar, she realized that there were two planes missing from the eight-Tomcat flight. _Oh._ She pulled on the stick, dumping flares and chaff at predetermined intervals, and prayed to God the SAMs would take the bait.

The Federation ground defenses had chosen to take advantage of how occupied the escorts were; where the orange-phosphor tracers of AA guns had clawed the skies towards Cygnus as if aping the white contrails of the Fed interceptors, now their rounds burst into clouds of filthy shrapnel and smoke amongst Polaris's formation. Missile alerts whined high and shrill in IRIS' ears and across the radio as surface-to-air missiles fired in serried waves directly into the furball, as if forming a tunnel for the interceptors of Morpho Squadron to race through on their way towards their real targets; IRIS' countermeasures bought her breathing room, but the Cascadians suddenly had a choice to make between diving into the shroud of detonations and pre-set locks to catch the Federation fighters or trying to buy _themselves_ more time.

Below, as that first Federation missile had impacted against the cordium-stained ground in a blossom of orange fire, so did one of the missing Tomcats. A Cascadian-marked wing spun away in slow motion, shedding fragments of skin, under one of the F/C-16s, as the interceptor pulled hard up and out of the furball towards Cygnus.

The other fighters of the squadron evaded and dove every which way, adding another shade of orange to the burnt auburn sky as they dumped flares in their wake. IRIS was too busy feeling her stomach shove itself into her lungs as she evaded to notice. Her missile warning died for a brief second, and she checked the radar. _Let Cygnus handle the defenses, huh?_ she mused. _Not actually all that reassuring when there's missiles on ya._ There were only three more Vipers, it seemed. Unless one had magically gained stealth properties. _With Icarus' toys, you never know._

A quick visual scan as she turned for a second run on the Vipers confirmed that, unless Icarus had developed invisibility fields as well, only half of the Viper squadron- _Morpho, right?_ was still flying. A quick swoop in from Zip's Sk.27 further thinned the herd, and Jackal and Dagger's F/C-15s made quick work of the rest. Tracer fire ripped across Dagger's aft, and a glancing round tore a hole out of the tailfin.

"Bluejay, Polaris 4, I'm hit- Nothing critical, for now." Dagger's voice didn't convey the same confidence her words did. "I don't think I'll be turning sharp for a while, unless I'm looking for uncontrollable spin."

"Copy, Polaris 4. Good news, though. Scopes are clear from the air. Cygnus is finishing off the last of the SAMs now. And I heard they got some _very_ nice snapshots. Might have to post 'em to the CIF socials."

As the last enemy contacts blinked off radar, the squadrons breathed a collective sigh of relief and began to talk amongst themselves. "How about that?" Burn smirked. "Major, you didn't get your mark. I made ace today."

The radio crackled. "Hold on," Bluejay said. "That's not our frequency… that's the intercept. ALCON, cut the chatter! Cut the chatter!" The CIF pilots went silent.

"Morpho Seven through Twelve, hold off on launch."

The roar of warming jet engines cut through the recipient's words, but they were still clear enough to understand through the confusion in tone and background— "Say again, Ground? Hold on launch?"

"Hold on launch. The sun is rising."

"Shit!" Bluejay shouted. "Five new contacts, approaching fast from the east! Polaris Squadron, engage!"


	12. Act 2 Chapter 3- The Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The following chapter was written in collaboration with my friend Apostle (who does not publish his work, so I can't add him as a contributor). We hope you enjoy it!

The voice that echoed over the radio was an older man's— smooth, aristocratic, tinged with the barest undertone of a sharp-tongued accent. Wherever he came from, it wasn't the old drawl IRIS remembered from the Federation's core states… but, somehow, it was still familiar. "Ground, this is Sunburst One. My sincere apologies for the delay; we'll have this cleaned up in but a moment."

"Bluejay, you said five contacts. What are we looking at?" The tension in the Major's voice was palpable.

"Five contacts, irregular formation. Lead plane is… Shit, I actually don't know what that is. Tag as UNKNOWN until visual ID." The AWACS sighed. "The wingmen are Sk.37s."

"Unknown?" Zip gulped. "I don't like the sound of that."

"Yeah," Jackal quipped. "Not when Icarus Armories is involved."

The AWACS started to freak out. "Spike in EM signature from the lead plane! Shit, Polaris 1, evade! Polaris, break! Break!"

"Breaking!" The lead plane of Polaris, a woodland-toned Sk.27, scattered, and the other planes scattered to the wind.

The enemy aircraft weren't even visible yet. All there was was the distant impression that Bluejay was—for once in his life, perhaps—telling the truth, that that high rise of panic broke through his carefree mien to expose what lay beneath.

Not a moment later, thunder split the sky.

The explosive _crack_ of a railgun's hypersonic projectile ripped the air apart where BASH's plane had once been; had their AWACS not detected the incoming round, it might have torn apart two of Polaris in a single trigger-pull. The electromagnetic radiation it left behind sizzled across the radio in the form of intrusive static, fading reluctantly like the orange-hued plasma trail the round left in the sky; it seemed that the clouds themselves were bleeding as the trail diffused, a knife-scar cut into the firmament from some distant foe little more than a circle and an UNKNOWN on the HUD.

The wrath of a god who, in this moment, seemed very far away.

The radio crackled again… but, this time, not on the intercepted channel. Whoever was addressing them did so by wide-band broadcast.

"Citizens of Cascadia. Ask yourselves: Shall you sacrifice yourself for the protection of traitors and cutthroats, and throw yourselves upon our blades for the sake of protecting the dogs you have brought to your high table? Upon my word, I will allow you to withdraw without reprisal if you leave now."

"You have until my count of twenty to turn your bearing to one-four-zero and exit the combat airspace. I am not responsible for your lives beyond then."

Bluejay sighed. "You know we can't do that, Polaris. Whatever Icarus is up to has to be stopped. JC's orders… Polaris, you're the rearguard. Cygnus Squadron— RTB. Polaris Squadron, engage."

"What about Dagger?" BASH asked over the radio. "Her plane took a hit, she's a sitting duck against planes that nimble!"

Bluejay shook his head. "Shit. Polaris 4, go with Cygnus. RTB."

"We're down to man on man," Zip said. "I don't like our odds."

IRIS steeled herself. She knew the voice over the radio. It had to have been two years ago, at that training exercise in Magadan.

_What would Zmei do? What would Brian do?_

_They'd fight._

"We don't have to like our odds," IRIS said, "we just have to take them."

"You're goddamn crazy," Burn said. "You saw that fuckin' thing. Is that a _railgun_ on a _fighter jet?_ I thought they needed an airship's power supply!"

"... Nineteen…"

"...Twenty."

"I think our offer of hospitality just expired," Bluejay said. "Polaris, cut the chatter and engage. Man to man. I've seen you all fight. Spook, you got the lead plane—"

Inspiring words were interrupted by action. Indeed, the man on the radio was true to his word—

Another railgun slug snapped through the formation a beat later, yet targeting _none_ of them.

He was not responsible for any of their lives.

Any.

That included the planes trying to run from a weapon with a range measured in kilometers.

In the distance, one of the fleeing planes erupted in a blossom of igniting fuel, fuselage splintering around fuel tanks ignited by ambient heat—a rose, caught in full bloom and snuffed out the moment it had been seen.

"Shit!" Bluejay shouted. "Cygnus 8, lost from radar! Get outta there, Cygnus, full burners!"

"A dog cannot outrun a huntsman's rifle," the Federation pilot explained patiently—as if, before him, they were but children to be calmly guided onto the correct path. This was merely the application of corporal punishment, a reassertion of discipline upon those who sought to free themselves from a distant parent who still _knew better than them._ Somehow, the condescension grated almost as loudly as the missile warnings. "You are no different."

"Okay. The lead's escorts are breaking off for you, Polaris. Closing WVR. Polaris 6, engage the lead. Everyone else find an escort and stick to 'em like glue."

IRIS' missile warning alarm was eerily silent as she gunned for the leader. She watched as the missiles bobbed and weaved for her comrades, spewing flares and chaff as they went defensive, yet found herself practically unengaged.

"Polaris 6, evade! EM spike!" Sweat rolled down Bluejay's face.

"Evading!" She pulled back the stick as her insides pushed back against each other, watching as an orange beam of ionized air lanced over where her cockpit had been moments before. Lightning crackled around the plasma channel, hazel eyes widening from the blinding light.

"Polaris 6, I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I'll get back to you with a more complete analysis. That shot was slightly off-axis— the railgun isn't fixed forwards! Just get him to shoot again! Then I might be able to figure out how he's targeting that thing."

"You _want_ me to get shot?" IRIS shouted over the radio.

"No, I want you to get shot _at_ , not _shot!_ There's a difference!" The AWACS slammed his fist into the console.

IRIS broke the silence on the Federation frequency. _Well, I guess this might get him to shoot at me._

"Yo, gramps! You missed, asshole!" _If I'm right, and this guy is who I think he is..._

She was rewarded with silence, for a moment, the only sound in her ears the sound of her newfound squadron-mates fighting for their lives against the rest of the Federation squadron. One flashed by chasing Polaris 5, the Peacekeepers' characteristic emblem inverted in the emblem of a rising sun emblazoned on its high tail.

"Lieutenant _Khoury!_ My, I knew I was hunting dogs today, but not a traitor bitch into the bargain. How _have_ you been since Magadan?" She recoiled at his words.

His laugh—even, polite. Meant for a dinner party with an unwelcome acquaintance, not an aerial duel—was blocked off by the shrill scream of a missile alert as the unknown plane spun to the side, one of its engines cutting off as the uncontrolled thrust of the other whipped the splinter-camouflaged jet into a diving spiral. A heartbeat later, both engines flicked back on, their roar shaking the sky as the lead plane pulled out of its unstable, meteoric descent to drop in behind IRIS's tail.

"Do your new friends know whom they've thrown their lot in with? To think, you've reduced yourself to begging at Cascadia's feet for your life; is there any more Luciferian a bargain than selling the souls of your erstwhile comrades just for the chance to die here?

Fox two."

 _Yep. He's monologuing._ As she dumped flares and evaded, pulling hard to shake the plane from her tail, she mused. _Why did it have to be him?_

"Long time no see, Major Desjardins." As her organs all returned to their proper resting place, the missile streaking by, she gathered the willpower to reply. "You always did have it out for me, didn't you?"

"Now, don't be _absurd._ _You_ have nothing to do with it; your history, Lieutenant, does. Were that I were not proved right as to heredity predicting career—perhaps when I speak to dear Aleksandr once more, I'll assure him you died well, as any protege of his should."

The tut of his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth sounded even over the radio, even over the muted _tink_ of a single cannon round spalling off of IRIS's wing. It sounded with the force of memory, and of a lean man with dark hair being unable to hide an incredulous sneer even to her face two years ago.

"Earn that death."

"Spook, evade— hard EM spike, railgun's firing!"

IRIS pulled the stick hard. Uneasily, she eyed the module that was standard in almost every Peacekeeper's jet— a toggle switch on the throttle marked _AoA._

She flicked it, and as she pulled the stick, her plane's fly-by-wire controls gave up trying to stop the plane from flying dangerously, and gave into its pilot's reckless desires. She carved the plane up and over his, an inverted pass giving her a good view of the plane as she turned to get weapons on the other fighter. "Bluejay, I've got a positive ID."

"Yeah, with the way you two're talking, I'd say so." Bluejay did his best to multitask.

"Not just the pilot, Bluejay, the plane. Airframe's a Chimera. Pilot callsign, unless he got a new one, is Apostle."

"Oooh, that's rare." He updated the pilots' HUD, and the proper identification flashed into place. "I think I got what I needed, by the way. The railgun's on a limited-traverse turret, and it's guided by laser designation from the wingmen."

"You did? So I can stop getting shot at now?" She grumbled.

"Sure can, but don't let Burn know I told you that." Bluejay chuckled. "Polaris, focus hard on the wingmen! Every one you kill makes the railgun less accurate!"

"How the hell are we supposed to kill them? They're almost killing us!" Jackal shouted over the radio.

"Then do your best to drag them out of the airspace!" Bluejay gripped the armrest, tense.

Nicole wasn't much in a chuckling mood. She pulled the plane in behind her former colleague, and the dogfighting missiles growled in her ears, waiting to be unleashed. This time, she happily obliged. "Leave my uncle out of this. This was my choice. Polaris 6, Fox 2!"

The man on the radio—Major Desjardins, _Apostle_ , words that obfuscated the man beneath the mask instead of bringing him to light, had been drawing the fight progressively closer to the old refinery as they spoke. The way he flew was balletic, but no matter how strange it seemed to an outside observer, as calculated as anything he did… and where IRIS had been focusing on her own objectives, the two were suffused by not the orange light of a railgun's plasma channel, but by the cordium deposits of the Exclusion Zone.

"Then you're terribly _limited,_ Lieutenant."

The Chimera tipped nose-down, banking off to the right and down—lowering their altitude once again from the heights Polaris had reached while dueling Morpho Squadron. The familiar trill of a missile homing closer continued to sound in IRIS's ear, even as the splinter-camouflaged prototype seemed on a direct collision course for the bubbling magma churned up by the area's geothermal activity…

… And its pilot pulled that same caution-striped trigger that the ex-Peacekeeper had, veering out of the way so close to a cliff that the Chimera's jet wash sent the unstable ground calving into the lava sea. The heat-seeker, fooled by the thermal signature of the molten earth, was swallowed by the avalanche of scorched dirt and lost to sight, its detonation a cigarette's light next to the all-pervading glow of the Exclusion Zone. _Clever bastard,_ she thought.

"Your mentor and I have our differences, but he is right about one thing. We are not simply fighting for the preservation of Federation hegemony. We are fighting for order alone, here and across the entire world—to that, much like your skill or your prattle, Cascadia is irrelevant. It is the example that defections like yours and the betrayal of Cascadia as a nation set that threaten world stability."

"Before the year is out, millions will die across the globe if you and yours get your way. Civil wars. 'Police actions'. Proxy conflicts. Mercenaries growing rich like fattened pigs off of the leavings of your generous benefactors… the likes of which you should be no stranger to."

"Take the bullet they no doubt offered you, Lieutenant. It will be better than living to see what you have wrought."

"You always did have a way with words," she danced with the Chimera, the two planes pulling against each other across the backdrop of rock and flame. "But how many lines are you willing to cross for order? You can say whatever you want about my family, about my history… but at least I have _principles!_ " She shouted into the radio. "They ordered us to bomb a _hospital_. In downtown Prospero. Because they thought the CIF was there." She squeezed a burst of her plane's gun off, tracer rounds streaking across his plane's nose. "That breaks everything I was ever taught, about the laws of war, about what's right and wrong. I won't fight for an _order_ that kills innocent people."

"Oh, _good girl,_ Lieutenant! You obeyed your _moral principles._ " The prototype shifted on its axis, its broader wings practically riding the updraft thermals of the deposits below them. Where each unexpected gust of heat strained the F/E-18's airframe, sending the creaks of overstressed metal echoing along its length, the Chimera seemed at home within fire. As it should, if it was brought back from the brink of disuse here… but, then, what else might be hiding in the dust-fields that Cascadia forgot?

"Will you be there for the hospitals in West Africa? Kernuropa? The Federation Core? Your homeland, itself on the brink of civil war? Your convictions are worthless if you cannot protect everyone… and, most of all, are not _willing_ to. Where do you draw the line between who is innocent and who is worthy of your disdain?"

One could almost imagine his smile over the radio, as the Chimera whipped around a refinery building, its rudder twisting hard right to catch an off-boresight missile lock through the chimneys.

Patrician. Thin-lipped. _Disappointed._

"I told Aleksandr, when he wished to me back in Magadan that there was a better path for you, that this would never go well. Of all people, after all, was your uncle one famed for being able to discern who was _innocent_ in Oceania? Of all people, were _you_ intended to exercise discretion, a _girl_ so incapable of operating without supervision she needed her callsign to point it out?"

"You were always destined for failure. Hold still, would you?"

The two were on opposite sides of the building, now, as the missile he fired was lost to sight over IRIS's wing—a once-factory crisscrossed with the silent spires of old chimneys and the silver webbing of catwalks, spaced in the middle with empty tanks that once would have held raw cordium being prepared for shipping and distribution. Two sides of a coin balancing on its edge.

It should have been impossible to hit her. Yet a bolt of thunder carved _through_ the steel and brick and glass, splitting the building down the middle, and only narrowly missing her cockpit, the flash of light once again blinding. _He's shooting_ through _the building?_ She shook her head in disbelief, steadying her plane from the gust of air that the hypersonic slug left in its wake. _Bluejay said it was on a turret, but damn!_

"I said, leave my family out of this! This is between you and me, old man." She gripped the stick, sweat rolling down her face. "I can't protect everyone. _Nobody_ can protect everyone. But I had the choice to pull the trigger and I _didn't._ You're telling me you would?"

They flew out from behind the building and she rolled to position herself above the Chimera, who… waggled its black-striped wings mockingly. Mourning stripes, added after Oceania, when someone had asked. A thought overheard two years ago.

"The Lieutenant never thought to read the definition of utilitarianism? Color me shocked.

Of course I would. Of course I have."

"...And of course _you did,_ because you aren't in a cell right now."

"How did it feel watching those bombs fall, coward? You could not live with yourself, so you decided to try and cover up the stain on your conscience with the blood of others—the more we speak, the more I realize how pathetic you've become. I may spare Aleksandr the knowledge you survived at _all."_

The splinter-camouflaged plane's contrails curved up and over IRIS's F/E-18, twisting around in a corkscrew whose apparent elegance belied the aerodynamic forces that would have broken the back of a lesser jet.

 _No,_ she thought. _He can't be._

He was diving straight _at_ her, aiming to run IRIS straight into the cordium-tainted magma as she evaded. _Fuck me, he is._

Instinctively, she pulled up, disabling the AoA limiter and pulling an impossibly tight turn that brought her face-to-face with a charging railgun. As she looked up, electricity crackled along the length of the barrel, a cyan glow lighting the inside of her cockpit. The shell kicked up magma into the sky below the two fighters as it struck the ground— if it could be called that— below.

Over the Federation channel, a woman's voice crackled, sharing the same well-practiced calm as her squadron leader. To a lay observer, it would seem as if neither had broken a sweat; to IRIS, one could hear the strain of a fight made unduly difficult.

"Apostle, Cascadian attackers have been either downed or escaped beyond effective intercept range. Do we continue engagement against their escorts?"

The Major's words began with a bitter sigh—that of a man whose entertainment had been stolen away from him all too swiftly. "Negative, Stiletto. Primary mission objective is accomplished to the extent it can be; overarching orders remain technology preservation. Turn to bearing oh-nine-six and leave the combat airspace. As was written, _better the work of the righteous than the strivings of the sinner_."

"Copy all, Apostle."

The wideband clicked on a moment later, as the Chimera shifted away at the last second from another near-suicidal joust; enough of those, perhaps, and IRIS would have been hit eventually. And even one hit… _I better not think about that. Not while I'm over the lava._

"Citizens of Cascadia. Those who you have fought alongside have bathed themselves in the blood of their comrades once already, and made traitors of themselves to retreat from their sin. You have allowed wild beasts to sniff at your hands, and think yourself friends to them. When you are finally alone with the vultures in the ruin of your cities, know that no one will be there to stop them from tearing you apart as well."

"Take action whilst you still can."

The bright flare of twinned afterburners kicked on, drowning the F/E-18's cockpit in light, and the Chimera pulled away from its dance partner with the ease of a man's dying breath.

IRIS saw her opportunity, and followed his advice, taking action where she still could. She squeezed her flight stick's trigger, a hail of twenty-millimeter shells pouring from her Hornet's nose. They pinged off the Chimera's right stabilizer, shredding the ruddervator's mourning stripe and punching a hole in the squadron emblem.

The plane ahead of her banked, spiraling wildly for a split second before regaining control— the control, the composure, that its pilot was so renowned for.

"Always the cheap shot. I'd tell you to go to hell, Lieutenant, if you weren't already there." A moment of weariness… and then nothing but static, mocking in its hissing white noise, likely a pre-prepared code switch by Sunburst's own AWACS.

Soon, he would be gone without another word— and IRIS was left alone with her own thoughts, and whatever was left of the Cascadians.


	13. Act 2 Chapter 4- The Couch

Nicole was alone with her own thoughts, and that was not exactly the best company to keep. Especially not for her.

She sat with her back propped up against the F/E-18's nose gear, the perennial bags under her hazel-brown eyes an open book telling onlookers everything they needed to know about her mental state. _Exhausted. Burnt out._ She hung her head in a tired, heavy hand. The dogfight had taken a lot of her stamina, and the dialogue with her former colleague had taken what little serenity she had managed to gather.

The distant stormclouds dropped bolts of judgement on the landscape below as the pitter-patter of rain fell against the tarmac. The hangar, now, was a brief refuge, her own Ogygia, her Hornet Calypso as she lay shipwrecked among the waves of disastrous fate. She stared into the sky, and knew that it was more a home to her than this airbase ever had been. The sky didn't care about her past, after all.

A smoothly grating voice broke her trance from over her shoulder, off the left side of the Hornet's nose. "Hey there, ace." _Bluejay. Just the fucking company I was looking for._ "Whaddya want, 'Jay?" Nicole didn't look at him.

"I wanted to come by and thank you." He lowered his sunglasses as he walked out in front of the plane. She tried her best not to make eye contact.

"Thank me for what?" She looked down into her shoulder.

"Well… thanks for giving me a new story to tell." The AWACS smiled.

"Go to hell."

"What was that the old man said? We're already there, Spook." Bluejay let out a light chuckle.

"Please go away, Bluejay. I don't want to talk about him."

"I gotcha. I'll leave ya alone soon 'nough. But Jackal wanted me to pass on a message."

"Yeah?" Nicole looked up. _Maybe if I give him the attention he wants he'll leave._

"Jack said thanks. On behalf of the whole squadron. He's the only one who'll admit it right now, but you and I just saved their asses. He said that old man was full of shit."

Nicole sat there, stunned. "...tell him they're welcome. And yeah, I've known him for a while. He is."

"I think I will, Lieutenant." Bluejay snapped off a salute. "Good flyin' out there, Spook."

She didn't let him see it, but she smiled.

* * *

Nicole walked into the rec room and flopped face first onto the nearest couch. Her squadron was arguing and yelling about who knows what huddled around the ping-pong table, likely egged on by the caffeine and taurine of their energy drinks. She wasn't awake enough to care, and as she tried to sleep she could make out more and more of the shouting despite pulling couch cushions over her ears.

"What the _hell_ makes you think we'll be any different, huh? Why are you standing up for a fuckin' Fed?" Burn seemed on the verge of an aneurysm. "You just tryin' to get your dick wet or something?"

"What the fuck, man?" Jackal shouted. "You're fucking _insane._ That old man was talking outta his ass- just look at how many Feds she's shot down! She's on our side!"

Nicole pulled the cushions closer, trying to block out the… _spirited_ debate.

"Lieutenant Bernitz." Major Hawthorne cast a stern glare at her subordinate. "You're out of line."

Scott huffed. "I think Captain Hyder has more to answer for than I do. I'm Cascadian, through and through. I won't forget what people like _her_ did to us."

"God damn, you two. Knock it off already." Zip rolled his eyes. "Same as the last time we had this argument, we're getting nowhere but frustrated. Just keep this on the ground, okay? You're dismissed, Lieutenant. You should probably cool off too, Jackal."

Burn stormed off, thankfully missing her under the pile of couch cushions, and left the lounge.

Jackal walked over and slumped down on the couch, noticing the blob of fabric-covered foam in front of him. "...You good?"

"...No." Nicole kept her answer short, still clinging dearly to the hope of a nap.

"I feel ya, LT." He nodded, putting his legs up on the armrest and laying down.

He stared up at the ceiling. "That old fucker was right about only one thing. We are in hell, aren't we?" He chuckled. "No coffee and the substitute's literal poison. Briefing software doesn't work. Half the squadron wants to kill you, and I think _he_ wants to kill me too, now. This is the suckiest I've ever seen the Suck." Jackal seemed to be laughing at his own sorrow. "Old jarhead friend of mine told me that when I joined the National Guard I'd have to embrace the Suck. Well, here I am."

She didn't reply.

"He's gone now," Captain Hyder continued. "Died in the first few days of the war. You know the casualty lists are just reaching us now, right? All 'cuz of that damn jamming array."

_Solana._

The sun shined bright across the desert sand, great rocks jutting from the ground. Satellite dishes littered the landscape as planes pirouetted through the skies, forming new clouds as missiles' vapor trails hung in the air. Among the chaos, eight planes, dressed in the formal black colors of a ballroom dancer, lead their tango while their partners all, progressively… tripped.

Nicole laughed, the rush of the fight pushing everything else away, thinking about how she was going to paint the fifth mark onto her plane's nose that night. _Ace._

How many people didn't know their brothers or sisters weren't coming home? Were the two more stencils, now scratched out, worth all that pain? _No,_ she thought, _of course not._ She closed her eyes, and as another reminder of the evil she had wrought, the red cross of the hospital's sign stared her down through the grainy filter of the targeting pod.

He was right. She was a coward. A murderer, scrambling to bathe the blood off her hands. She wondered what Uncle Brian would say to her, how if he hated her all those years for joining the Federation, how much he'd hate her _now._

She sighed, and teardrops consecrated the sinner's face in sorrow.


	14. Interlude 2 Chapter 1- The Coffee

The days since then had come and gone. Her sandwiches, she noticed, no longer saw themselves slathered in ungodly amounts of cheese-adjacent mayonnaise, Bluejay had harassed her with significantly less unprompted, dubiously true stories, and Burn had… avoided her, mostly. A few tense stares in the hallway, a few heated words exchanged, but for the most part, her life had turned eerily _calm_. Or as calm as one can be when an incredibly friendly armed man is six feet away from you at all times. He was getting better at avoiding her attention, and Nicole couldn't tell if that was comforting or worrying. "Don't worry, it'll be like I'm not even there," he said, when he was first assigned to surveil her, and he seemed to be finally delivering on his promise.

The hangar was open to the brisk Alaskan air, and today it was a hub of activity as the pilots checked on their planes, touched up the paint, or just shot the shit. For Nicole, it was the latter. Jackal had come up to her earlier and asked for stories about her dogfight with the ace, and for once, she felt confident enough to share. _Things are finally getting better,_ she thought, and for the first time in ages, her tired scowl had been replaced by a confident and almost borderline cocky smirk.

"You should have seen it, shit was crazy. We were over the magma, right? And the old man just dived straight on me. Like he was trying to run me through." Nicole leaned up against the F/E-18's fuselage. "I gave it some crazy high-G shit and turned right across his belly. Railgun was charging thiiiis close to my forehead." She held out her hands, visually illustrating their proximity. "Then- _kwapow!_ Loudest shit I've ever heard in my life. Dude shot straight into the ground and kicked up fresh lava everywhere."

Dagger crossed her arms, hunched over a tall toolbox in the middle of the hangar. "Bull-fucking-shit. Just because I wasn't there doesn't mean you can play me for a fool."

"Oh, c'mon, Spook," Jackal stared at her from his F/C-15's cockpit, checking over its systems. "You can't expect me to believe a story like that." He shook his head. "Planes just don't move like that!"

" _Most_ planes don't move like that." She pointed over her shoulder to her plane. "AoA delimiter."

"Shit, you got one of those?" Jackal's eyes lit up briefly, covered up by an annoyed huff. "Lucky…" He mumbled, trailing off.

"Hmph. You Feds got all the good stuff, and here we are with planes that… Well, I don't want to say were falling apart, but…" Dagger gestured to the F/D-14s on the other side of the hangar, the remnants of Cygnus Squadron. "...let's say… they'd seen better days even _before_ this war started."

A jet flew overhead, unexpected by the pilots. _I'm not doing anything,_ she thought. _Might as well go planewatching._

She stepped outside to watch the C/T-17 howl in for a landing, the cargo plane putting its wheels down on the tarmac. She glanced back at the other pilots. "Yo, Jack, Dag, get over here!" Her eyes were wide with excitement. "It's a cargo plane!"

"Shit!" Jackal jumped from his seat in the F/C-15. "We're finally on the supply chain again?"

"You gotta be kiddin' me…" Dagger ran up to the hangar door, watching the plane taxi over in front of it.

As the crew unloaded crates, one sole, solitary, tiny container caught the eye of all assembled.

_Coffee._

The pilots looked at each of the others, and they all knew what they had to do.

The box of instant coffee sat on the ping-pong table, the three pilots huddled around it at arms' length. This crate, to these people, at this time, was worth five hundred times its weight in gold.

"What do we do with it?" Jackal stared at the packets of instant coffee in the box, its lid propped open. "...There's not enough for the whole base, unless we want coffee for… two days."

"I… need it." Nicole grabbed fistfuls of instant coffee packets and started stuffing them into her flight suit's pockets.

"Woah, calm down, Fed girl." Dagger pulled the box away. "Save some for the rest of us."

"I know this is hard, guys," Jackal looked at the other two pilots with an uneasy expression. "But I think we have to share."

"Do you know how little sleep I get on a daily basis?" Nicole sighed, the dark bags under her eyes sharply visible against the deep tan tones of her face. "I am not sharing this coffee with anyone who does not yet know of its existence."

"You know what, Jack?" Dagger raised an eyebrow. "I'm with the Fed on this one."

"Thanks, Dag." Nicole smirked. "Come on, Jackal. Pact of silence. Shake on it."

"Ugh," The pilot groaned. "Fine. Three-way split."

"Pleasure doing business," she said, smirking wide. "I think we've got some good times ahead of us."


	15. Interlude 2 Chapter 2- The Visit

The sun shined brightly in the brisk autumn wind, leafy hues of green, yellow, and orange painting the streets as the trees continued their yearly cycle of death and rebirth. It looked so different from the skies, the flight school graduate having just completed her final ceremonial flyover in the prop-trainer of the small East Coast country's capital. It was her hometown, carved from the landscape by vast glaciers millennia ago, sculpted by the river Charles and the generations of people who had lived beside it. The Calamity had been merciful to the majority of the East Coast, and while the city was smaller than it once was, it was busier than ever, one of the world's great cities.

She pushed a loose lock of bronze hair out of her face, nudged out of place by the crisply cool breeze. The walk was pleasant, and she soaked in the atmosphere, for she was merely here to celebrate on leave, her final leave before receiving her assignment to one of the country's two aging, second-hand carriers or a considerably better cared-for Naval Air Station to certify and continue her training. She had fantastic news, and she had someone to share it with. She had made this walk plenty of times in her life, and the familiar sights brought nostalgic tears to a pair of hazel-brown eyes unfamiliar to anything but smugness, confidence, and enthusiasm.

She knocked on the door of the fourth-floor apartment, the place that was not her house but was more her home than anywhere on the earth. On the other side of the door, a pale green eye filled the peephole, scanning over the visitor for any sign of a threat. The man in the apartment's hand retreated from the pistol hidden under the entryway table, and he opened the door with a warm, tired smile.

"Nic!" The man held out his arms. "I don't get many visitors these days. C'mon in."

Closing the door, she gave her uncle a hug in the apartment's narrow entryway. "What brings you here, of all places?" His face looked unaccustomed to the expression of happiness it bore, as if every muscle in his head was allergic to such a grin. Grey hairs streaked through a forest of closely kept brown that had somehow held onto its place atop his pale head. "I thought you were at flight school."

"I was. I graduated today, and they gave us leave so that we could say our goodbyes. I already stopped by my parents' place, but…"

"It wouldn't have been complete without a visit here, huh?" Brian's Oceanian accent was strategically disguised by an adopted one that wouldn't have sounded out of place anywhere in the city, if his old inflections didn't occasionally sneak in. "Sorry to disappoint, but the missus is out and Josh moved away months ago. Just this old bloke."

"I'm sure I'll get to see them again on leave." She sat down on the couch she had practically grown up on, and looked out the window, a view she knew intimately.

"Always that window, huh?" Brian sat down in the old leather-clad chair, a beer in his hand. "I remember back when you and Josh were… you had to have been thirteen, just met each other. That boxing movie came out, right? The real inspirin' one. Forgot the name." His laugh was deep and tinted with a vague wistfulness. "Two of ya' got it in your heads that you were some MMA fighters or something. You'd… well, I could never tell if you were sparring or fighting. But one day I had to stop you two because you were over on that side of the room and ya hit him so hard he tripped and almost went out the window." He shook his head. "You never did learn when to quit."

"I don't remember that," she raised an eyebrow.

"Course ya wouldn't, he clocked ya back!" The old man smirked, and they both laughed. Those days seemed so far away.

"So," Brian's smile faded into a serious expression. "We hadn't talked for a while even before you went to Navy indoc. Whatcha here to tell me?"

"Well," she said, her smile a little uneasy. "First, I wanted to apologize for being a bit distant."

Brian waved a hand in dismissal. "I hate all this politics driving the family apart. I'm sorry for my outburst at the party that summer. Couldn't help but notice your old man and I didn't go drinking as much after that." His sincerity was unclear, and his words went down with a venomous aftertaste. _He'll never change, I don't think. Too much of a bitter old merc for that._

"But what I really wanted to tell you," she continued, her grin widening. "...I rated for fast-movers. They said I'm tracking for Super Bugs."

Brian's eyes widened. "Hornets? No shit?" He laughed. "Sorry luv. Your old man always did give me hell for swearing around you—"

"Brian, I'm a grown woman now. You don't need to act like swear words don't exist."

"So ya are, Nic." He shook his head in disbelief. "My Nic, an honest-to-God fighter jock."

"Just like you, Uncle Brian." She grinned, glowing with pride.

"God, I hope not." He stared at her, his mask slipping for a second, an expression of deadly sincerity wiping the proud smile from his face. "You don't want to be a pilot like me."

"Why not?" She raised an eyebrow, stunned at the brief transformation.

The old man chuckled, a weary smile returning to his face, the smile of a man who had seen too much. "I don't want to burden you with the pain of the past. Let's focus on your future. Lemme get you a drink," he said, heading to the fridge and grabbing her a bottle of the fairly cheap beer. "Here's to your future. My Nic, a fighter pilot."

They clinked the bottles together, and sat on the couch. "To my future," she said.

It was a good afternoon.


	16. Interlude 2 Chapter 3- The Scandal

Burn knew something was going on between the Fed and Jackal, but he couldn't prove it.

They always seemed to show up to morning meetings around the same time. They disappeared at weird times, they kept… _winking_ at each other sometimes. There was one time, too, where he even saw Dagger wink at one of what must have been an inside joke. _Disgusting,_ he thought.

It was unbecoming. Unfitting. _Wrong._ It went against every fiber of his being to even stand next to her without punching her in the jaw. His brother's killer. The enemy. _A threat to my squadron._ And now, one of his own squadmates was… befriending the enemy, at least, but if his suspicions were correct…

Scott shook his head. _No, it can't be. I know he_ was _kinda looking at her like that a while ago, but…_

Burn sat down at the lunch table, the three of his suspects nowhere to be seen. "Hey, Major, Captain," he said, chowing down on a sandwich.

They acknowledged his greeting, but otherwise stayed aloof. "Hey Burn." "Lieutenant Bernitz."

A few moments later, Burn spoke. "Have Spook and Jackal been a little… off, lately, to you?"

BASH grabbed her tray and stood up. "Sorry, Burn. Just finished eating." She made a production of looking at her watch. "And I've got a meeting with JC."

 _Really laying that cold shoulder on thick, huh, Major?_ Burn took a sip of water as she left. _Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it's not there._

Zip groaned. "What is it this time, Lieutenant Bernitz?"

"I think there's some… inappropriate behavior going on in this squadron. Between at least two of the squadron's members."

"I don't know, Burn. The weirdest stuff I've seen around here recently is how you won't take off those tactical gloves when you eat a sandwich, but please, continue."

"That's a religious thing and you know it, Zip." Burn's brow furrowed, taking offense.

Zip shrugged. "I never did quite understand that tenet. Good thing I'm not exactly Dust devout anymore."

"Oh, whatever." Burn sighed. "Theology can wait. I think Spook and Jackal are fraternizing."

"And what evidence do you have to back that up, exactly? Or is this more of your crack detective work— I'm sorry, crack _pot_ detective work." Zip rolled his eyes.

"I… uh…" Scott smiled uneasily.

"You're gonna make those kinds of accusations? Come back with something concrete. Not 'I saw Jackal looking at Spook's ass this one time.' Okay, Lieutenant? Otherwise, I'd like to ask you to refrain from making allegations against your fellow officers." Zip shook his head and returned to his sandwich.

"Uhh…" Scott hung his head. "Yes, sir."

* * *

 _Prove it, huh?_ Burn grit his teeth, holding up a copy of _The Practical Application of Advanced Air Combat Maneuvering_ to pretend he was reading. In reality, he was camped out with a good view of the hallway that led to the cell, watching the passers-by in the early morning hours before the daily squadron meeting around the ping-pong table. He grumbled to himself, taking a pull from the foul-tasting can of the potentially harmful energy drink. _I wonder how long we can last running on this stuff before someone drops dead,_ he thought. _But hey, it's either this or exhaustion._

Burn skimmed the book, a Federation Air Academy staple text. It was pretty common fighter pilot reading worldwide, too, since the tactics inside it were based on actual combat experience from the Oceania War— the author, a Magadanian pilot whose name Burn didn't particularly care to remember— had been a prominent Federation ace and a Peacekeeper. The book, mercifully, was full of graphics, and he scanned through the pages, watching diagrams of Sk.37s twirl and turn through the air with swanlike grace. _While some more demanding maneuvers are fully dependent on the capabilities of one's airframe,_ the text read, _a more skilled pilot in a lesser airframe will almost always defeat an amateur on the cutting edge. See, for example, the Battle of Canberra, where mercenary pilots Cerberus and Merlin drove off my Cobalt Squadron's much nimbler Sk.37s in simple F/C-15s._ Burn took another swig of his drink, the battery acid taste and the heart-stopping amount of caffeine preventing the lullaby of the textbook from pulling him back to sleep. _Pilots, therefore, must learn these tactics from both the perspective of the more maneuverable and the less maneuverable pilot, for they never know when they will cross paths with airframes superior to theirs, and must be equipped to defeat them regardless._

Burn looked up from the book just in time to watch Jackal walk through the hallway and briefly look over his shoulder. _Shit!_ Burn buried his face in the book. _Hope he didn't see me._

After a few minutes, Burn put down the book, got up from his spot, carefully walked down the hallway stairs towards the brig, and came out in front of the Fed's cell. _Alright,_ he thought. _I'll get the guard to testify to Zip and BASH._

"Airman," he said to the guard, standing outside between him and the cell's only window. "I need to see the prisoner at once."

"Sir, I can't do that," he said, shuffling uneasily.

 _Shit! Even the guard? Has our discipline really gone so lax?_ His eyes widened. "Why not, _Airman?_ "

"Well, uh, Lieutenant, she has the same rank as you. And she told me no visitors."

" _Really,_ Airman? Because I saw a squadmate of mine come down this way— and you and I both know the basement brig is a dead end. So, where did Jackal go?"

"Um… Lieutenant Khoury told me to let him in—"

Burn stormed towards the steel door and slammed into it, the metal plate not budging an inch. Panicked yelps echoed from inside the cell.

"Airman, I order you to open this door or by the Dust I will have you on tribunal."

"I swore I wouldn't do this," The guard paused. "But I guess I don't have much of a choice."

The guard opened up the door to the cell, and the Fed, Jackal, and Dagger all turned to look at Burn, expressions shocked.

"What… the… _fuck!?"_ Burn shouted.

They were huddled around a folding table, the scent of instant coffee rising from the mugs in their hands. A hoard of coffee packets was propped up out of sight of the window in the corner of the room.

"Oh… hey, Burn," Jackal said, breaking the silence. "What's up?"

Burn stared at _her._ The Feddie bastard that had done this to him. He shouted, filled with rage.

"OH, YOU _MOTHERFUCKER—"_


	17. Interlude 2 Chapter 4- The Dossier

The Peacekeeper's office was shockingly roomy for military accommodations, and the young pilot shuffled uneasily in the chair. She gulped as the older man entered, and jumped up to attention. "At ease, Lieutenant." The grey-haired, subtly bearded man smiled warmly behind a pair of reading glasses, and he reminded her of a paler version of her father. A placard on his desk read LT COL ALEKSANDR PRIVALOV, shiny and polished beyond belief.

"You and I," he said, in heavily Magadanian-accented, yet impeccable, English. "We have much to talk about, and I believe you already know the first item on the agenda."

"Yes, sir." She nodded, a dejected frown. "I'm sorry, sir. I broke the rules. I won't let it happen aga—"

The man shook his head, a stunned gasp. "No, no, do not apologize. That was brilliant." He smiled. "Well, perhaps to every other officer you should apologize. But not to me. The ten meter rule is there to keep the amateurs from trying something stupid. Now… you are an amateur. And that was very stupid." He laughed, a hearty, disarming laugh. "But I do not think you are just another… loose cannon with more bark than bite."

She sat stunned, for a second. _This is the guy? The terror of Oceania? He acts more like my grandpa._ "Uhh… thank you, sir."

"You're welcome, Lieutenant Khoury. I will recommend that you not attempt that stunt again while we are still in the candidate selection phase. But your talent has… it has caught my eye. Even going easy as I do, no candidate has ever beat me in a mock fight on the first day. Rule-breaker or no."

"Really? Nobody?" She raised an eyebrow. "How long have you been doing this?"

"I have helped select the new class of Peacekeepers for… six years now. This is the first year I have worked with the… exchange program." He shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, this is the first year such a program has existed. Command says it will promote goodwill with the world. I am inclined to agree, and I have been looking to retire for a while now. This is… a good last assignment. To raise the next generation. Its brightest talent, from wherever they may hail, in service to the peace of the world." His voice went on melodically, as if he had launched into a love poem. The violin, perched on its stand behind his desk, seemed apt. "Beautiful, no?"

She nodded. "Sounds like a pretty good last gig to me."

"'Gig', you say? You sound like my granddaughter." That warm smile again, that disarming laugh. "However, something else has caught my eye about you, Lieutenant Khoury, and this is what I called you here to discuss." His tone turned deadly serious.

"What's wrong?" Sweat started to bead on Nicole's forehead.

"Your… family history." The Peacekeeper pulled a folder of papers from his desk, passing them to Nicole. She opened the folder, and a picture of her uncle getting a bowl of clam chowder at a small restaurant a few minutes down the road from his apartment stared back at her.

"How did you…" Her jaw hung open. The dossier on his movements, on his family— on _her_ family— was scarily accurate.

"Your uncle… he was a mercenary thirteen years ago, no?" Lieutenant Colonel Privalov raised an eyebrow to his rhetorical question. "This… this information, it came up in your second round of background checks."

"I'm not… going home, am I?" She looked up at him. "Please. This is my only shot. You can't send me home—"

"They are ready to send you back. But… after today, I may not let them."

"—I don't even talk to him anymore— wait… you won't? Why not?"

"Well… I have conditions." He looked her in the eyes.

"What are they?" Her grip on the folder tightened.

"Well… I need assurance that you will have no qualms with fighting for the Federation."

She stared at the file. "You're not gonna… hurt him, right?"

The Lieutenant Colonel jumped back. "Oh God, no. We wouldn't kill a citizen of the UAS, even if he has failed to properly hide his identity. We can't extradite him for trial, either. The treaty negotiations stalled— your uncle is safe, do not fear for him. I just need to know where your loyalties lie."

"The Federation… the aid they sent kept my parents together. I don't have any problems with it. My uncle's issues are his and his alone." It was true, but it felt like a betrayal. She sighed.

"I understand that it's not easy to make you choose between loyalty like this. You have made a difficult choice. But you _have_ made the right choice." He smiled. "I'll be watching you through the rest of the selection process. If I feel like you have lied to me— and I know when people lie to me— I _will_ change my mind." He glared at her, a stern parent's disappointed look. "You do not want me to change my mind. Otherwise, I am a hero of the Federation. I have many connections, connections that can make this… problem, go away. Like you and he never even knew each other."

She sat there in silence, taking in the atmosphere of the well-decorated room. A shelf of what looked like sheet music— for his violin, she assumed— dominated the left-hand wall of the office. The right wall was littered with carefully-curated photographs of squadrons past, tracing the Lieutenant Colonel's heritage as a pilot— oddly, not a single trophy from a battle long past, no kill tallies or war memorabilia.

"You have such tremendous talent, Lieutenant Khoury. I want to help you set it _free_. With pilots like you in the skies…" He stood up, looking out the window. "I cannot wait to entrust the world to the next generation. You all have so much potential. You are dismissed, Lieutenant Khoury. I will see you… in the skies." He looked back at her, smiling wide.

She smiled back and offered him a salute before she left the room.


	18. Interlude 2 Chapter 5- The Connection

The morning was like any other morning. Boring. God-awfully, dreadfully _boring._ No missions, no targets, no word from command. Just the slog of the alert planes and the Combat Air Patrol. 

Today, Burn joined the daily prison cell coffee cafe with her, Jackal, and Dagger. _Well,_ she thought, _I’d rather lose a few days of coffee than let him blab to the rest of the squadron._ His love of coffee, apparently, surpassed his seemingly boundless hatred for her, and she didn’t mind that. The chatter had gotten a lot more awkward, though.

“Wait,” Burn said, raising an eyebrow. “How the hell did you get the guard to cover this up? You’d think he’d want in, too.”

Nicole shrugged. “I asked him if he wanted any. He says caffeine isn’t good for you.”

“I had to go to the vending machine at 0300 once, and I saw him doing rounds in the hallway,” Jackal scratched his head. “Does he… ever sleep?”

Nicole put a hand to her chin in thought. “Now that you’ve mentioned it… I’ve never _seen_ him sleep.”

“But he’s _gotta_ sleep, right?” Dagger stared into the mug of instant coffee. “He has to. No coffee, no Wired… well, he’s probably better off not drinking _that._ ”

“I just… assume he sleeps standing up, or something.” Nicole shrugged. This was starting to eat away at whatever last vestige of her sanity still existed. _I am in hell, aren’t I? Everything about this base is designed to fuck with me._ “Alright… meeting’s coming up. Hit the mouthwash by the sink, can’t have coffee breath and let the others find out.” 

* * *

The morning meeting around the ping-pong table was the same as usual. There wasn’t much to discuss, and for the most part, the pilots stood there in silence.

Zip raised an eyebrow. “Uh… did I miss a directive on dental hygiene, or something?” The smell of minty-fresh mouthwash wafted through the air. 

“No, sir.” Burn gave his XO a toothy grin. “The fight against gingivitis is just as important as the one against the Feds, sir!”

Zip shook his head. “I mean, it’s important, but last I checked, we weren’t planning on biting the Feds to death--”

Nicole crossed her arms. “You don’t know me.”

“Y’all are _weird_.” Zip shrugged, shaking his head. “How did I even wind up in charge of you fuckers?”

“Well, Zip, your squadron got its shit kicked in and you retreated here. Same as the rest of us.” Dagger shrugged. 

“I… wasn’t actually asking.” Zip sighed. “Whatever. Major, this meeting’s pretty much over anyways, can we end it?”

“Sure thing, XO.” BASH had been too busy chuckling at the previous exchange to join in. “This meeting is adjourned, you’re all dis--”

A pilot from Cygnus sprinted down the hallway, grabbing the edges of the doorframe to catch his breath before shouting, “ _The internet’s back!_ **_The internet’s back!_ **”

One of the enlisted men, a maintainer sitting on the couch with a controller in his hand, rolled his eyes. “Oh bull- _shit_ , Butterbars. You’re still tryin’ to get back at me for the shavin’ cream thing, aren’tcha?”

The Lieutenant in the doorway caught his breath long enough to stammer out a reply. “Not… not fuckin’ with ya, Chief. The briefing software… it fuckin’ _worked…_ internet’s back!”

“Really?” The crew chief raised an eyebrow, and held up the controller. “Then why don’t I try to hop on Live? Huh?” 

Nicole watched as the game on the TV connected to the online servers, and within seconds, a prepubescent Magadanian voice started screaming over the speakers.

“Uhh…” Nicole’s eyes widened. “I spent enough time in Magadan to know that the twelve-year-old just called your mother a whore.”

“Wait,” somebody said.

Nobody did.

The room exploded into chaos as everyone rushed for the nearest available computer.

* * *

The base was in chaos as people rushed to their barracks, quarters, or lockers to retrieve long-abandoned phones. Nobody had been let away from their post, but nobody seemed inclined to listen to the few who maintained discipline. Parents, children, siblings, and friends were once again in reach, and the steady drip-feed of news on the state of the war had in an instant turned into a torrential flood. 

“Holy shit…” A pilot looked up from his phone. “The Feds… they’re… _losing?_ ”

Bluejay looked over someone’s shoulder. “No way, he stole _what_? That dude and I fished together!”

Nicole didn’t pay attention to the chaos around her. She ran down towards her cell, the guard close by. She pulled up her cot’s bedding, looking for something that wasn’t there.

“Hey, uh,” she turned to the guard. “What happened to my laptop?”

“Oh, _that_?” The guard shrugged. “Intel took that ages ago.”

Nicole’s face went pale. 

“Ah. _Okay_! Ah, well, I remember you took my phone, too. Do you think I could have that back?”

The guard shuffled around uneasily. “Well… I think I’d have to ask the Lieutenant Colonel… but I guess just for a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” she said, as the guard handed over the glass-and-metal slate. She powered it on, punched in her passcode, and pulled up the phone.

She stared at the contacts list, and went for the keypad. She knew this number. The phone rang, and rang, and rang.

_Shoulda known he wouldn’t pick up. Figured_ he’d _at least give me the benefit of the doubt--_

A _click_ from the other side. “Hey, Nicole.” A familiar voice greeted her, and he didn’t seem happy. “You’ve got _some_ fucking nerve.” 


	19. Interlude 2 Chapter 6- The Graduation

“To all of you assembled here today,” The Lieutenant Colonel, a living legend, an icon of the Oceanian War and the Federation’s victory in it, adjusted his reading glasses as the glare from the spotlight seared itself into his retina. “You are our future. And what a beautiful future I see for our Federation.” He hesitated, opting to take the glasses off his face. He wouldn’t need them. 

“I am proud of _all_ of you. This class is such a wonderfully talented group of pilots.” That warm, fatherly smile spread from cheek to cheek. “As the Chairman of this class’ selection committee, I pronounce you all graduates of the Federation Advanced Fighter Tactics School. Now, there is another, far more prestigious title for all those who have survived the grueling gauntlet that you have faced down and overcome without fear. I am proud,” The faint sheen of a tear seemed to ripple across the old man’s eye. “I am proud to call you all Peacekeepers.” The other officers seated behind him started to clap, and Lieutenant Colonel Privalov did the same. 

_I… made it,_ she thought to herself. She didn’t let herself break out in cheers like she so desperately wanted to do. The pilots standing beside her seemed to be forcing back celebration just the same as she was. On stage, the pilot who had tested her skill and swept her background check’s issues under the rug called up pilots to pose for photos with their new squadmates, and she couldn’t help but feel like she didn’t belong here.

_Don’t ever talk to me again._ That’s what he had said to her, when she had signed up for this. 

* * *

“They’re never going to send me to fight!” She banged on the door of the apartment. “Please, just hear me out!”

There was no response.

“It’s only for five years. Five years and then I’m right back here on the East Coast, teaching nuggets how to fly! Then I can retire!” She shouted at the thick door of the apartment. “Then I can retire and join their space program. The Feds’ _space program_ doesn’t kill anybody!” 

More silence.

“C’mon, Uncle B, this isn’t like back when you were a merc! The world’s _stable_. Nothing is going to happen! What’s the worst thing they make me do, fight some pirates?”

She gave up, and slumped to the ground, her back up against the door, sobbing.

“I thought… I thought you wanted me to chase my dreams, Uncle Brian…” 

* * *

She heard her name called, and walked up to the stage. Six other pilots joined her, and they all shook the Lieutenant Colonel’s hand in order. 

“Last, but not least,” The old man gestured to the pilots onstage. “As you all may be aware, we have an entirely new squadron forming. This is the first graduating class of the Advanced Fighter Tactics School to include foreign pilots, through the new International Peacekeeper Exchange Program.” Many of the Federation-born pilots, with their squadron jackets adorning them in the colors of their new squadrons, grumbled. The Lieutenant Colonel glared at the audience, disappointed in their discontent. “This initiative will help further the Federation’s goal of world peace and goodwill among nations by allowing talented pilots from around the globe to serve with the Federation…” Privalov looked back at the seven, assembled on the stage. “And these graduates will form its first squadron. Meet the pilots of Peacekeeper Black Squadron.” He grinned, and broke into applause.

Hesitantly, the rest of the room followed his lead. 

“Additionally,” Privalov leaned into the microphone. “I will be retiring from the Advanced Fighter Tactics School’s selection committee to take up command of this squadron.” 

The audience fell silent, unsure of how to respond before deciding upon another, uneasy round of applause.

* * *

 _This is it_ , she told herself. _The first day of the rest of my life._

She stared up at the ceiling of the tiny duplex off the outskirts of the base in Magadan, lying on the bed. _Dad’s proud. Mom’s proud. Who cares if Brian is just… coming to terms with it?_ She forced herself to smile. _That’s all. He’ll come around._

_You’re under my wing now,_ the Lieutenant Colonel had told her. _I don’t know if you understand how many strings I had to pull to get that problem to go away._ She stared at the sleek, weatherproof jacket on the chair across the room, a deep grey with black accenting, just like the plane they had assigned her. The Federation’s star sat stitched into its left shoulder, the Black Squadron emblem on the right. 

_Why?_ She had asked him. 

_I did it because I haven’t seen talent like yours in a long time_. 

It couldn’t have been that simple. It just simply couldn’t. But the old man had said it with such dripping sincerity, such clear-cut authenticity that it _had_ to have been true. 

_Brian will come around._ The forced smile wore at her mind until it started to become true. _What was that he always said? That kinda funny expression… oh, yeah_ _—_ _‘she’ll be right.’ Well… he’ll be right. He’ll come around, eventually._ The smile had morphed into a confident smirk. _One day, I think he’s gonna be damn proud of me._


	20. Interlude 2 Chapter 7- The Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written with some help from my friend DatJoshLife. Hope you all enjoy it!

“ _You_ ,” the voice on the phone said, “really have a _lot_ of fucking explaining to do. This _better_ be an emergency or so help me God—”

Nicole sighed. “Hey Josh. Great to hear from you too. And it’s… kinda an emergency, yeah.”

“Kinda? Convince me not to hang up on you right fucking now.” Anger seeped into his words. Anger she couldn’t exactly blame him for. 

“I… left the Federation, Josh. I defected.”

“You… what?” She couldn’t see him do it, but she knew he had recoiled in shock. “You… left the Feds? How the hell do you _leave_ the Feds? And in the middle of Magadan, no less?”

Nicole leaned into the phone, rolling her eyes. “Josh, I need you to listen to me. I deployed to Cascadia… and then I defected to the CIF about a month ago.” 

“You’re fighting for the _CIF_?” Josh seemed to be in shock. “No Shit.”

“Nope,” she shook her head, phone in hand. “No shit...”

“Well… _this_ should be interesting. You called your folks yet? Your old man is gonna kill you.” Josh chuckled, uneasily.

“I… haven’t called ‘em yet.” She sighed.

“You _haven’t_ ? Oh, what I’d give to be on _that_ phone call. They’re worried sick.”

“Do _you_ want to be the one who tells _my dad_ that his daughter betrayed the _Federation_?” Nicole raised her voice. She didn’t know how long this call would stay connected, and she needed to get to the important part of the conversation before the Feds found a way to shut down Cascadia’s infrastructure again.

“No, but—” He tried to speak, but she interrupted him.

“Then don’t fucking tell me to tell them! If I can, I’ll tell them I’m doing fine and hold back the detail about… _y’know…_ after we’re done.” She sighed. “I called you for a reason beyond just ‘ _Hey, Josh, how ya doin! Your AI research start any apocalypses recently?_ ’, ya know.”

“I mean,” he shrugged. “For what it’s worth, we haven’t committed any atrocities lately. You?” 

“Get the _fuck_ off my case, Josh. _You’re_ not the one at fucking war.” She grimaced. “Anyway, I need to speak with Brian.”

“Why? You know he won’t talk to you.” Josh almost sounded smug. “I dunno if your sudden _change of heart_ will be enough, either. Although, that is another phone call I’d just _love_ to listen to.”

“Go fuck yourself, Josh.” She grit her teeth.

“Oh, I’m sorry— who needs who here? I could just fucking hang up on you and my life doesn’t change a bit.”

“So much for a good brother,” she sighed. _Maybe the pity card?_

“Last time I checked, you don’t betray family. You _had_ a good brother. Maybe you should’ve considered that before tearing our hearts out without a second thought.”

“Josh?” _God, he always did know how to get me._ “C’mon, Josh. Please.”

“Ahh, so we’ve moved from just insulting me to get him to listen to you onto just begging. _There’s_ some catharsis I’ve needed for a while now.”

“Josh, please. I’m in a pretty fucking bad place right now, okay?” She sighed. “I need to talk to him. I don’t know what to do out here… but _he’ll_ know. He’s been where I am before—”

“You should’ve considered that before you went to go play Peacekeeper. Give me 10 minutes, then you can try again. I won’t guarantee he’ll pick up.”

“That’s better than what I had a few minutes ago.” She paused. “Thanks… Josh.”

“Oh trust me, the heads-up I’m giving him will just help him get ready to chew your sorry ass out.” The smug grin on Josh’s face was loud enough for the phone to pick it up. “Plus, you better call today, or when I get back in town tomorrow I can guarantee I'll be on the speakerphone. Have fun! Oh and uh, keep count of those war crimes, I wanna compare when my AI takeover happens.”

She didn’t have time to groan before he hung up.

* * *

The phone picked up on the second ring. _That didn’t take long,_ she mused to herself. _Maybe he’s not that mad?_

“So,” The voice over the phone was monotone, in that the one tone was seething. “ _You_ called.”

_Oh… he’s_ that _mad._

“Two years, now.” He continued, his rage creeping into his voice slowly, like a cancer metastasizing. “I suppose you have such a _short_ definition of ‘never.’”

She didn’t know what to say to that. 

“I… I need help, Brian.” She stammered out what little she could.

“‘Course ya bloody do, if you’re coming to _me._ Heard you stabbed the Feds in the back! Gettin’ good at that, now, aren’t you?” She didn’t _have_ anything to say to that, and she didn’t _say_ anything. Yet he still heard her. “Oh, don’t go crying now. Your _uncle_ ’s gotcha.”

“I’m gonna have to fight them, eventually.” Nicole managed to quit sobbing just long enough to talk. “My squadron. Peacekeepers. You’ve fought Peacekeepers before.”

“Oh, c’mon ‘luv. You know that was fifteen years ago. I couldn’t help you... if I wanted to.” 

“There’s gotta be _something_ you could tell me. You told me yourself! You were a hero! You mercs were the knights of the skies!”

The man on the phone _laughed._ A sickening, horrible laugh. “Knight, eh? Not sure where you got that from. And a hero? I was a _monster._ Looks like you’ve taken after me just fine.”

She took a deep breath. _Don’t let him get in your head._ “He was a vet, you know.”

“Who?” 

“My mentor. From the Federation. He fought in Oceania, same as you.”

“ _Who._ Give me. A name.”

“Aleksandr Privalov. Zmei.”

The other end hung in silence.

“Zmei? You said you were gonna fight him?” The venom receded from Brian’s voice, replaced by shock.

“The way he treated traitors? I would be shocked if he didn’t hunt me down personally.” _Does he… know him?_

Brian didn’t say anything for a while.

  
“Then I’ll help you.” His tone was deadly serious, the infernal hate in his words no longer directed at her. “I’ll help you _kill_ the bloody cunt.”


	21. Act 3 Chapter 1- The Sortie

Nicole shrugged, flight helmet in her hand as she turned to face Burn as they walked towards the ready room. “Oh, c’mon,” a confident smirk streaking across her face. “You know the definition of insanity, right?”

  


“Ugh.” Scott grit his teeth. “You wouldn’t win without that damn AoA module--”

  


“Bet?” She raised an eyebrow. “How much. How much are you willing to put up?”

  


“No more coffee for me. And I don’t rat you out, Fed.”

  


“Deal.” She winked, a broad, mischievous smile as she thought about Scott-free mornings, with more coffee for her. “I think I’ll like that very much.”

  


Jackal stood at the doorway, gesturing with a thumb towards the hall. “Briefing room. We got sortie orders.”

* * *

“Spook, the rest of the aggressor fights for today are cancelled.” The Major hit the lights in the back of the briefing room. “You’re off the hook for now. Kinda.”

  


“Gotcha, ma’am. DACT was starting to get repetitive.” Nicole took her seat, drumming her kneeboard with a pencil. 

  


“Well,” Lieutenant Colonel Camarda took the podium. “You’re going from repetitive to boring, Lieutenant.”

  


_ Lovely. _ She sighed. 

  


“Alright, Polaris Squadron, this is a pretty simple assignment, so we’re sending you up alone.” He clicked the button on the briefing computer’s remote, and the MacAllan Information Software logo flashed onto the screen projected behind him, the overwhelmingly blue user interface of TacScape v.1.3.1 booting up in the background. “Our offensives against the Federation further down in the mainland have been having a serious effect, as we’ve come to find out in the last few days.” Camarda gave the pilots a confident smile. “This is  _ not _ the losing war we thought it was.”

  


The squad had a certain sense of…  _ lightness _ , to them, the tactical overlay of the war on the screen validating the misery they had faced. There  _ was  _ a point to it, after all. 

  


“A group of Federation transports has been picked up on our base’s early warning radar, vectoring hot on us. They’re probably headed to link up with Magadanian fighters on CAP, because it looks like their escorts either broke off, got picked off, or didn’t exist. Easy-peasy. I’m putting their flight path up on the map,” The self-assured base commander pointed to the projected screen, and the rest of the squadron groaned.

  


“Seriously?” The Major glared at the screen. “Oh, c’mon!” Jackal sighed. 

  


The Lieutenant Colonel raised an eyebrow. “What’s the matter, don’t like easy targets?”

  


“No,” The Major said, nodding her head towards the briefing screen, raising an eyebrow.

  


“Oh, son of a…” JC dropped the remote control. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  


_ DRM LOCKOUT-  _ the screen said.  _ TACSCAPE™ LICENSE REVOKED. _

  


“Anyone got any idea how to fix this?” Camarda raised an eyebrow. 

  


“I’m looking it up, sir,” Dagger said, looking down at her phone. “Uhhh… sir, news says the Feds made them revoke all our licenses. Said we’re a  _ ‘terrorist organization.’ _ ”

  


JC let out a defeated sigh. “Whatever,” he said. “We don’t need that piece of junk anyways!” He forced a smile. “We don’t need that. We don’t need  _ briefing software! _ ” 

  


“Well, hey. It’s just a simple transport intercept. Flight of… about twenty-five C/T-17s. Hit ‘em before they get to their guys. They’re trying to use the storm that’s going on over the Strait for cover. Probably loaded to the brim with fleeing Fed troops, getting ready to regroup and hit us hard later.” He shrugged. “Whatever’s on ‘em doesn’t matter. Command said to engage any outbound Federation transports. So… this is a pretty simple mission. Good hunting, Polaris.”

* * *

IRIS climbed the ladder of her F/E-18.  _ Looks like I just can’t get outta the skies today, huh? _ The fuel crews had topped it up, and the wing racks were loaded for bear, twelve MLAA missiles hanging from the wing stations.  _ Well, let’s get you out there. _ Her radio crackled as she called to the tower. “Tower, Polaris 6. Requesting permission to taxi.” 

  


“Rog, Polaris 6. Taxi to runway 320A. Good hunting.”

  


As the squadron went airborne, there wasn’t much idle talk, for once. Bluejay did what he could to try and change that, but it seemed like everyone was in too good a mood.

  


“So my folks, right, they were real huntin’ nuts, right? Taught me how to hunt, back when I was a kid.” The crinkle of an unwrapping granola bar came in strong over Bluejay’s radio. “Fuck, got some granola crumbs in my ECM console. Almost fried your radars for a second there.” He continued his story. “Well anyway, my parents were real tight with the Vice President, right, back when I was ten. And he was a big-game hunter, and my parents were big-name donors.”

  


“Uh-huh. Lovely, Bluejay.” BASH nodded dismissively, the team’s bored mother listening to her talkative, annoying child. “Lovely.”

  


“So he took us on one of his hunting trips, right?” 

The squadron rolled their eyes.  _ Lovely. Another storytime. _

* * *

“...So I was standing there, and the Secret Service guys tackled me, a fuckin’ ten-year-old, because I accidentally shot the VP in the fuckin’ face. And he lived! Then he sued the shit outta us. What a dick.” 

  


“...Bluejay, what? No you didn’t. I don’t think you’ve  _ ever _ told us a true story.” Jackal groaned over the radio. “Just… you don’t have to run your mouth constantly, you know.”

  


“No, no, I’m not kiddin’, man, Scout’s honor!” Bluejay snapped off a sloppy, mock salute. 

  


“Bluejay,” IRIS raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you tell me a story last week about getting kicked  _ out _ of Scouts?”

  


“Uh… yes. I never said it was a particularly  _ good _ Scout’s honor.” He shrugged. “Look, you can look it up. It was all over the news. But not right now, because, y’know… no texting and flying.”

  


“Wait, Bluejay, you say that like we brought our phones.” Dagger seemed thoroughly confused. 

  


“You don’t?” The distinctive sound of a mobile match-3 puzzle game filled Bluejay’s mic.

  


“Wait, are you  _ seriously  _ playing Sugar Swipe Adventures in a fucking AWACS? And isn’t that game’s target audience like… my grandma?” Zip sighed.

  


“Well, all your burning questions and  _ more  _ will be answered once y’all do your jobs,” the AWACS operator’s tone suddenly switched to become more professional. “We’re here. Weapons hot, Polaris. Good hunting.”

  


IRIS sighed, thumbing the selector switch to MLAAs and flipping the Master Arm switch.  _ Well, this is gonna be boring. _


	22. Act 3 Chapter 2- The Calm

The sky lit up as the C/T-17s dumped chaff and flares, turning about as hard as cargo planes could. 

“Y’know,” Jackal’s voice crackled over the radio. “They’re sittin’ ducks. You almost feel sorry for ‘em.”

“Almost,” Dagger’s smirk was audible. “Not quite.”

“Y’all feel  _ sorry  _ for ‘em?” Burn sighed. “C’mon guys, these troops were destroying our home not a second ago, and now they’re runnin' off to catch their breath. Whaddya think they’re gonna do when they do, Jackal? Say ‘good game’ and walk away?” He huffed. “I wish.”

“Hate to admit it, but Burn’s got a point,” the Major chimed in. “Might feel wrong, taking out defenseless transports, but they’ve got it coming.”

“Alright, Polaris, cut the chatter.” Bluejay seemed to be taking his job seriously, for once. “Just a few transports in between you and more ‘o Bluejay’s storytime.”

IRIS rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, when you put it  _ that _ way, I guess I should turn the Master Arm off.”

“Hell no!” Bluejay laughed. “C’mon, do ya really wanna be known as the squadron that took five hours to shoot down twenty-five transports?”

“Make that twenty-five and an annoying AWACS,” Dagger grumbled.

“Oh don’t you get testy with me, Lieutenant Ashido. Y’know I’ve got an air to air kill in this thing, right?” The AWACS watched as the missiles rippled from Polaris’ planes. “Positive separation, Polaris. Fox three by six.”

The missiles carved their way across the sky as six transports went up in flames, unwillingly sent diving into the storm below.

“C’mon, we all know your little maneuver-kill story’s bullshit,” Zip said over the sound of a missile streaking off his Sk.27’s wing. “No way you could have killed a Flanker in a goddamn Wedgetail, jetwash or no.”

“You wanna find out, Zip? Because I’ve got plenty of jetwash here and you’ve got a Flanker." The AWACS munched down on a granola bar. "Fuck, I really gotta clean up my workplace. These crumbs just got all over my radar display."

"Oh, c'mon, Bluejay," BASH chided. "Have some professionalism. For once."

"I will have you know, I am nothing but a consummate professional." More open-mouth granola chewing poured in over their helmets' headsets.

"Yo, Bluejay?" Jackal's voice was filled with urgency and shock. "My radar warning receiver says I'm locked onto."

"Oh, c'mon," Bluejay said. "You're screwing with me, right?" The AWACS looked at his radar display. "There's no fighters within— a… shit, that's  _ not _ granola."

"Oh, shit." The AWACS sobered up quick. "Polaris, break! I have no count, but there are stealth fighters in the AO!" 

"Shit! Missile on me, breaking defensive!" Jackal peeled off, and the formation scattered to the wind.

IRIS panicked for a second before letting her training kick in. Black Squadron had flown DACT fights against VX-23s before, and she did her best to recall her training. "Bluejay, I'm opening up the Fed comms channel now. Patching you through."

"Their chatter's coming through loud and clear, Spook. Thanks for the snoopin'." Bluejay stared at the radar console, lost in thought. "Dammit, open your bays. Do something that'll give me a radar return!" 

The Federation comms were hot. Transports, panicking as they came under fire, were beginning to calm down. "Siniy, this is Phalanx 3. Boy, are we glad to see you. There's six bogeys on us, we've lost a few planes."

As a Magadanian-accented voice broke through the static, four Federation fighters broke through the cloud layer in the distance, outside of view. "Roger, Phalanx. Do not worry about the Cascadians. We will handle them. They won't even see us coming."

IRIS looked down at her radar, just for a second, to look for whatever momentary blips would appear.  _ Nothing. _ She scanned the horizon, her helmet's HMD alerting her to targets for her IR missiles, but all she could see were locks on the engines of the cargo planes.

"Radar spike!" Bluejay's voice came through over the radio. "They're practically right on top of you— but where the hell  _ are _ they?"

"Polaris," BASH's voice came over the radio, calm and reserved as ever. "Break into flights of three and  _ watch  _ your wingman's back. I've got Dagger and Jackal. Zip, you take Five and Six. We've got more missiles than they do. When they pop up to launch on one of you, suppress your targets."

The planes reshuffled their formation, pulling into three-ship weaves as they were forced to wait for their aggressors to make a move. Thunder crackled below the planes, the only sound besides the roar of their own engines. The silence, in a way, was nauseating, the creeping feeling of being watched eating away at her resolve.

She stared at the radar warning receiver.  _ C'mon,  _ she thought.  _ Do something! _

The clouds below them split as two sleek, canard-winged fighters bared their fangs at the pilots. IRIS heard the missile warnings blare inside her helmet, and did exactly what BASH told her to. There was no time for a radar lock, and as the stealth fighters let their missiles loose on the formation the Cascadian pilots did the same. "Fox two! Breaking defensive!" She peeled off, dumping chaff and flares, and watched her squadron mates do the same. The enemy fighters dived down for the cloud cover, but the three missiles that Polaris had let loose on them were bloodhounds on their tails. 

"Looks like somebody got one," Zip watched the VX-23 trail smoke and explode as IRIS heard the squadron's chatter. "Dammit, Siniy Four is down. Tell Command we need reinforcements!"

"Whose kill was that?" Burn smirked. " _ I _ think it was mine."

"Cut the chatter, Burn. I'm crediting all of you with an assist." Bluejay whacked his radar display. "Work, dammit!... Ah well, radar's not going to be much help. Hit 'em with the Mark 1's."

"Eyeballs it is," IRIS replied.

"Never was very good at I Spy," Zip chuckled. "Here goes."

IRIS looked over at Zip's Flanker and chuckled to herself as the other VX-23 popped its head out of the clouds behind them. Tracer fire streaked overhead, and suddenly her vision was awash with orange and red.


	23. Act 3 Chapter 3- The Storm

IRIS felt her stomach shove itself into her lungs as she broke formation as hard as she could. The explosion lingered in her mind, but the G-forces were all she could focus on. _Breathe. Breathe. Don’t red-out._ As she took deep breaths, recalling the breathing exercises that were so second nature to her, Bluejay’s panicked voice came over the comms.

“...Shit, shit shit shit! Polaris Two... lost from radar.” Sweat beaded down the AWACS operator’s face as he double-checked the console. “C’mon, be a glitch, be a glitch!”

“Negative, Bluejay,” Burn said, breathing heavily. “I have visual confirmation. Polaris Two is splashed.” 

“Zip!” BASH’s voice was uncharacteristically frightened. “Dammit Zip, bail out! Polaris Five, do you see a parachute?”

IRIS steadied her plane as the blips on her radar warning receiver faded. “Blind on a parachute, Polaris One,” she said, somber. “And anyone bailing out into that storm…”

Bluejay knew the situation was dire, and he got to work. “Polaris, the stealth fighters are using the cloud layers as cover, and popping out into the clear to harass us. If any of you bastards are crazy enough to fly down through that storm, you might be able to chase them down visually. I need _time,_ because you need _reinforcements._ In case any of you forgot, they called for their own not too long ago.” The AWACS shook his head. “Christ, this is bad.”

“Roger, Bluejay,” the Major replied. “Polaris Six, you and I are diving. Three through Five stay on each others’ wings. Keep your squadmates safe.” 

“Major Hawthorne, with all due respect, your dogfighting’s a little rusty. The DACT fights the other day--”

“I don’t care about the aggressor fights,” The Flanker pilot replied. “I’m not losing any more pilots. If anyone else goes down today, it’ll be me. Spook can handle herself.”

_Thanks, I… guess. Just throw me into life-threatening peril, why dont’cha?_ IRIS watched the clouds for any hint of stealth fighters, and as the green-and-brown-camo painted Sk.27 pulled into formation with her, the two fighters dove, punching through the storm like an osprey searching for a fresh catch. In the background, Bluejay called over the radio.

“CIF Command, this is AWACS Bluejay attached to CIF-77 Polaris.” The AWACS operator’s tone was somber and measured. “Unable to continue mission as fragged. We have lost an aircraft from an unexpected hostile presence. Be advised: stealth fighters are in the AO. Requesting reinforcements from any available airbases-- Avalanche, Avalanche, Avalanche at the following coordinates: six five point five three degrees, four niner minutes North, one seven two point two one degrees, three niner minutes West. I say again...”

The AWACS faded into the background as a bolt of lightning broke over IRIS’ shoulder, the thunderclap drowning out the rest of the world. Her helmet-mounted display flickered and crackled, the wind throwing her fighter every which way as blue flashes lit the clouds with electricity. The two CIF planes broke through the storm, the sea below a rough chop. 

IRIS spotted two grey outlines on the horizon. _Where’s the third?_ She took a deep breath in, pushing the anxiety down as she swept her head around her peripheral vision. “I see them,” BASH said over the radio. “C’mon, Spook. Let’s draw them into the merge.”

“These are VX-23’s we’re fighting,” IRIS said. “Radar-guideds aren’t gonna be much use. Dump ‘em, they’re just dead weight. Maybe we can force them defensive.”

“Was just about to say the same thing, Spook. Polaris One, maddog fox three by three. Polaris One is skosh.” Three MLAAs streaked from the Flanker, seeking their own targets. IRIS thumbed her selector switch, taking a look at her weapons stores-- one heater, nine MLAAs. 

She checked to see if a radar lock was even worth trying to acquire, and the lack of blips on her plane’s radar display seemed to indicate against it. She agreed, and aligned the nose as best she could with the grey silhouettes, ripple-firing her nine remaining MLAAs as the planes were forced to break off by the inbound missile threat. “Polaris Six, maddog fox three by nine!”

Her plane suddenly felt… lighter, flightier. She watched as the stealth fighters turned with incredible agility, dumping chaff in their wake, the gap between them closing. “Polaris One,” BASH radioed in. “Fox two by two.” The Flanker’s heat-seeking missiles shot off their carriage rail, seizing on the wispy trails of heat left by the stealth fighters’ thrust-vectoring nozzles. One of them went wide, but the other one found its way home.

“Good shot, BASH, confirm kill on VX-23.” Bluejay pumped his fist in celebration. “Two down. Two to go. I’ve got something up my sleeve that might help even the odds, I just need to… remember everything I’ve forgotten about operating the F/C-8’s electronic warfare suite.”

“...What do you mean, _forgotten?_ ” IRIS gripped her plane’s controls, eyes widening. “You’re our goddamn AWACS! You should know these things!”

“Look, Spook, I was in prison for six months before the CIF busted me out and helped me commandeer this plane. Skills decay over time. I’m only human,” The AWACS clacked away at keys and flipped switches. “No, that’s the Master Radiation switch-- whoops, wouldn’t want to hit that, it’s pointed at _you_ guys...”

“Pointed at-- Bluejay, did you forget how to do your entire fucking job in _six months_?” IRIS watched as the distance between her plane and the stealth fighter evading the flurry of radar-guided missiles closed. 

“Look, Spook, you weren’t there.” The AWACS snapped back. “It felt longer. Plus, this equipment isn’t all standard.” He flipped a switch with a “Got it!”, and the Feds’ radio lit up. “Siniy 1, this is Siniy 3. My radar’s jammed and I have no joy on the group of CIF fighters-- what do I do?”

The other Federation fighter on the line responded. “Engage the jamming plane, evade the others. I have my hands full down here.”

“Hoooold on,” Bluejay said. “Engage the _jamming_ plane?”

Over IRIS’ radio, she could hear the missile alerts. She couldn’t pay attention, though, as the heat-seeker on her wing growled, begging for its pilot to set the killing machine free. She obliged, and her last missile shot away from her plane, clearing its rail, and turned sharply towards the stealth fighter. “Polaris Six, fox two-- Polaris Six is Remington.”

“ _Fuck fuck fuck fuck--_ ” Bluejay’s panicking voice was only barely louder than the missile alarms. “Goddamnit, _TURN!_ Dump countermeasures! Fucking do something! What the fuck do I have a pilot for if you’re not gonna fucking--”

IRIS watched as the heater flew for the VX-23 before being narrowly distracted by flares. “Polaris Six, bogey trashed my missile.” She pursued the defensive bandit, matching her nose towards its tail. “Closing to guns range.”

“C’mon, Carter, if you’re just gonna let the missile hit us _let me know_ so I can get back in touch with God and tell ‘em I’m sorry for the last ten years.” Bluejay sighed. “Uhhh… fuck, I don’t remember any prayers.”

IRIS squeezed the trigger, the twenty-millimeter _whirrrr_ of the gun shaking the airframe. The Federation fighter snapped out of her vision, jumping upwards. _Only one thing that could be,_ she thought, and flicked the caution-taped switch on the throttle, her intestines punching a hole in themselves as her Super Hornet’s flight computer looked away from her dangerous antics, content to leave the pilot to play in the sandbox of aerodynamics unsupervised. 

She chased the fighter as it broke away from the relative safety of the realm between the storm and the sea, tearing through clouds as thunder broke all around. Her HMD flickered, hazel eyes dilating with the lightning. The wind buffeted her wings, shoving the thirty-two thousand pounds of machinery around like it was no more than paper. The other fighter in front of her was no doubt fighting through the same, and as the comforting green glow of the display flashed in and out of reality, IRIS took a deep breath. She shut out the noise around her, the AWACS yelling into the radio, the roar of the jets to her back, the crash of electrons finding their way home to the ground. 

“Polaris Six,” she said, a cold, sharp confidence to her voice. “Guns, guns, guns.”

Soon, her own bolts of thunder joined the sky, and the other plane twirled and spun as best it could in the tempest to avoid them. The effort, however, soon proved in vain. She squeezed the trigger, and the rotary barrels of the Vulcan sent a twenty-millimeter round home to rest in the VX-23’s engine cowling, a splash of orange in the sea of grey. 

“Polaris Six,” a cocky smirk growing across her face. “Splash one. That’s for Zip, asshole.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good and all, but I am an _AWACS_ . I should not be hearing missile alerts.” Bluejay turned towards the cockpit, a mocking calm to his voice. “Carter, I take it back-- keep it up honey, you’re doing _great_ . Remember, _turn_ to avoid the missiles. _Turn!_ ” Bluejay’s faux tranquility fell apart as he screamed towards the cockpit. “And _countermeasures_ !” An explosion rocked the radio and Bluejay buried his head in his hands. “ _FUCKNOTLIKETHISNOTLIKETHIS_ \--” 

IRIS pulled her plane up through the cloud layer, BASH trailing behind her, the flaming wreck of the VX-23 punching through the cumulonimbus ceiling ahead of the two CIF pilots. “AWACS Bluejay, Polaris One,” BASH radioed in. “Status. I say again, status.”

Bluejay didn’t seem to hear. “Oh, _joy,_ Carter. Look out the window, the engine’s gone. Look at what your flying got us. We’re down an engine, and there’s a supermaneuverable stealth fighter out there trying to kill us. My _dog_ is a better pilot than you.” _Bluejay has a dog?_ IRIS thought to herself. _He struck me as more of the… irresponsible type._

“Siniy 1, respond!” The remaining Federation pilot sounded like they were panicking. “Shit… the whole squad’s dead. I’m outta here-- the reinforcements can handle this.”

“Bluejay,” the Major said, sternly. “Status. We’re forming up on you for protection.”

“Oh, fuck. Sorry, BASH. Well, right now? I’m instructing my dipshit pilot to bug out. Sorry to leave y’all tumbleweed, but I can’t loiter like this.” He checked the radar blips on his console. “Wait-- Polaris, what state?”

“We’re Remington here,” Jackal replied. “And I think most of the squadron is. We took down some transports while you were, ah, busy, One.”

“Well, cavalry’s here, so you should probably RTB for a resupply,” Bluejay said. “CIF-28 and some mercenaries, Hawk team.” Bluejay looked down at the console again. “I’m… oh shit. Feddie reinforcements are closing, too. I don’t think our guys will be enough. I’m calling for more.”

Polaris Squadron turned to exit the AO as friendly F/D-14s and F/S-15s pushed into it against the enemy reinforcements, opposing jetwash cutting across the sky and painting it with streaks of white. Bluejay’s F/C-8, trailing smoke, limped along with the five remaining CIF-77 pilots as escorts. “CIF Command, AWACS Bluejay. Avalanche, Avalanche, Avalanche…”


	24. Act 3 Chapter 4- The Showdown

The comms, for once, were eerily quiet. As they headed for the skies over the Bering Strait down one AWACS and down one pilot, the five remaining members of Polaris, refueled and rearmed, held a tense silence gently in their hands, none of them wishing to shatter it. 

The radio, however, would have none of it. It crackled and jumped, panic and chaos flooding their ears in equal measure. “God damn it!” A CIF pilot’s voice came in shrill and frantic. “That’s all of Aurora gone!”

Federation radio was similarly distressed. “We’re getting our asses handed to us! Call for reinforcements!” Another fighter answered back. “Heard the Crisis Response Team’s coming. Yeah, _I_ ’d say this is a fucking crisis!”

“Shit, they’re coming?” The first Fed replied. “This furball gets any crazier, and they’re gonna call out the Peacekeepers!”

IRIS shivered at the mention, and she could feel the eyes of the squadron lock onto her plane. She regained her composure, but the silence in Bluejay’s absence was a frightening presence rather than the calm she had always hoped for. As they approached the Strait, the consequences of their actions became painfully clear, and the Major ordered them to break formation and engage.

A massive tangle of contrails hung above the stormclouds, the identities of enemies and friendlies almost impossible to tell apart. The sky over the Strait was a canvas, painted in fire and smoke, and the aces dancing in the carnage held the brush. 

IRIS looked down at her palette and considered her options. With all the confusion, she was just as likely to shoot a MLAA at a friendly and not even notice until the missile pitbulled out of control and leapt at the nearest target. She knew that the only way to survive was to get nimble, and she was not going to do that with ten MLAAs strapped to her plane. She watched as the missiles decoupled from their racks, sailing disarmed into the stormclouds below. “Polaris Six, MLAAs ditched. Heading into the merge.”

She watched as the furball enveloped her fighter, adding one more wake to the contrail constellation. A Federation fighter spiked her warning receiver, and she turned defensive, the lightened weight of her plane responding immediately. She glanced over her shoulder, watching the nimbler F/C-16 turn with her. “This is gonna be fun,” she grumbled to herself. _My intestines really are gonna hate me for this,_ she thought, flipping the caution-taped AoA switch. 

Her plane spun on a dime, locking eyes with the Federation pilot as she momentarily flew backwards. “Polaris Six, guns, guns, guns.” They weren’t looking at each other very long. “Splash one.”

She soared off, in search of another target. A friendly F/S-15, one of the mercs from Hawk Team, called out for help sanitizing a bogey from his tail. “Somebody swipe this Viper off my ass!” The pilot was in pursuit, tunnel-visioning on a Federation Sk.27. She sighed, gunning the throttle towards the Agile Eagle, and pointed her HMD at the F/C-16’s single engine. One heat-seeker and one “Polaris Six, fox two” later, and the F/S-15’s pilot let out a sigh of relief before firing off a heatseeker of his own, the Sk.27 bursting into flames ahead of him. "Holy shit…” The pilot said. “Hawk 1, on my way out to the south-east, bingo Remington. Polaris Six, I owe you one!"

A smile broke across her face. _Feels good to be appreciated._

Diving back into the furball at a passing F/C-15, the remaining missile vanished off her wings as she was soon forced to call out “Polaris Six, Remington!”. Fighters exploded around her, her allies and enemies alike calling out kills, lamenting lost friends, and otherwise… panicking. 

“My IFF’s overloaded!” one CIF pilot shouted into the radio. “There’s too many bogeys in the sky!”

Another joined in, the panic oozing from his voice. “We’re getting torn up out here! Where are the reinforcements?”

A charismatic, suave voice cut across the radio. “Let’s get to business!” New IFFs popped up on her radar. _Mercs,_ she thought. _Nice of them to finally show up._ One of the CIF lead pilots expressed her thoughts for her. “Where the hell have you guys been? Half the Federation Air Force is here!” The mercs bickered amongst themselves, before the distinctively, buttery smooth voice of an AWACS operator broke through the comm static. “This is the Mercenary AWACS Galaxy to all IF callsigns, flashing ident to any IF AWACS. How copy?”

“Should we… tell him?” IRIS radioed into her squadron. 

“Nah,” Jackal raised an eyebrow. “You really want to admit we let our AWACS get smacked?”

“Good point,” she said, quieting down.

BASH shook her head. “We have an obligation.” She switched to the open CIF channel. “AWACS Galaxy, Polaris 1. Our AWACS was forced to RTB after taking damage. You are the only IF-affiliated AWACS aircraft left in this AO.”

“What?” The AWACS’ blank, disbelieving stare was loud enough to hear. “What do you mean _I’m_ the only friendly AWACS left in this AO? Fine, all friendlies, I’m in charge now. Begin Handshake procedures and _try_ to stay alive.”

“What state, Polaris?” the Major radioed in. “I’m Remington,” IRIS replied, “But I could go for a few more rounds.” The rest of the squad replied similarly, though with less enthusiasm.

“Bullshit, Six. We already lost one plane today. RTB.” The Major shook her head. 

“Aw,” IRIS said. “And I was just starting to have some fun. We coulda seen that Crown guy in action.”

“Why?” Burn said. “So you can get your ego checked? God, you need it.”

“That dude’s overrated, anyways.” IRIS huffed. “No way the shit they say about him’s true.”

“No sense arguing about it,” Jackal said. “We’ll just have to ask the guys who make it out today. There will be more battles, Spook. Let’s get outta this one while we still can.”

The five planes turned away from the Strait. “AWACS Galaxy, Polaris. Our squadron is bingo Remington, RTB.”


	25. Act 3 Chapter 5- The Flight Line

The fighters of Polaris sat on the flight line, Armstrong’s airfield a buzz of activity as fighters took off, resupplied, and landed in staggering numbers. IRIS watched as the planes swarmed the skies, heading off into the largest battle in air combat history. The one, she couldn’t help but feel, was kind of— at least partially— her fault.

_ So much for easy pickings, _ she sighed.  _ I wonder if we even got all the transports, like we wanted to. _

She desperately pushed the memories of Zip’s plane going up in flames to the back of her mind.  _ Have to be ready when they send us back up, _ she thought,  _ no use grieving now. _

Her radio crackled.  _ Finally, we’re getting back into the fight. _ She couldn’t have been more wrong.

“ALCON, this is Vega One. That merc AWACS might have gotten swept up in the celebration, so we might as well tell ya,” A jubilant CIF pilot grinned ear to ear. “Feds issued a full retreat. Battle’s over. That Crown? God damn, he’s somethin’ else. Drove those Peacekeeper bastards off!” IRIS’ eyes widened at the mention.  _ Bullshit, he can’t be  _ that  _ good. But which squadron? _

“Vega One, Polaris Six,” She radioed in. “Which Peacekeepers?”

“Polaris Six, does it really matter?” The pilot hollered in celebration. “That’s a few less Feddie aces we gotta worry about.”   
  
“It  _ matters _ ,” she said, sternly. “Which squadron?”   
  


“Woah, chill.” The pilot sighed. “If it really means that much to you, it was Crimson.”

She didn’t click her push-to-talk button, smacking her plane’s dash instead. “Goddamnit!”  _ I  _ am  _ gonna have to fight them. That’s just my fucking luck, isn’t it? My cosmic punishment. _

JC’s voice broke the sound of her now heavy breathing. “Polaris, this is Armstrong Actual. Get off the flight line. We’re done for today… and Captain MacTavish needs a burial, body or no.”

She didn’t have the energy to sigh, staring blankly out the windscreen of the Super Hornet.

* * *

How long had it been? Just over a month?  _ Kinda felt like longer, like Bluejay said...  _

She stared up at the concrete ceiling of the cell, a time-honored ritual at this point. Tears were pooling at the edge of her eyes— not something she wanted the other pilots to see. She didn’t have a claim to tears. She hadn’t known Zip, not like the others. She had barely talked to him. What gave her the right to break down over the death of a man she hardly knew? Sure, maybe he sort of stood up for her at the start. Sort of. But she had only lost an acquaintance, and her squadmates had lost a  _ friend. _

The cell’s lighting stared back down at her, an uneasy companion to her misery. She wondered what Brian would say, back before he’d tell her to go fuck herself. Probably something like,  _ she’ll be right, sport, pick yourself up. _ So, that’s what she tried to do. She placed a hand against the cheapo mattress, pushing up and away. 

A few deep breaths later, she lacked the will to put her feet on the ground, and let her arm collapse under her, her back smacking the bedding.  _ Ugh. _

As the blankets settled atop her, she watched the fluorescent tubes flicker gently. _What am I doing?_ _I should be out there with the squadron. Instead, I’m hyperventilating in my bed._ She had never lost a wingman before, much less seen them catch fire and explode right next to her. She blinked, trying to get the tears out of her eyes and the memory out of her head. Neither seemed to want to budge. 

_ Actually, what  _ would _ he say? _ She furrowed her eyebrows in thought. The guard had given her back her phone, apparently the Lieutenant Colonel was letting her use her phone again. She fumbled her phone onto the concrete floor, the caseless phone landing squarely on a corner. She picked it up, fractured veins running up and down the glass. “Fuck.”  _ At least it still works, _ she thought.

She punched in the number, and the phone almost went to voicemail before Brian finally picked up.

“Hey, Brian.” Her voice trembled in distress. “Shit… shit hit the fan.”

“Huh? What happened, Nic? You sound a mess.” His tone was eerily… patient. Like he hadn’t been in a long time.  _ Maybe I finally got through to him? _

“Yeah… thanks for noticing. We just got in a fight with half the Federation Air Force.  _ I  _ just lost a wingman. I thought… you’d know something about how to deal with that?”

Brian sighed, his voice, too, becoming unsteady. “No… I can’t say I do.”

“Wait,”  _ I know he was good… but was he  _ that _ good? _ “You mean you’ve never lost a wingman?”

“I  _ never  _ said that,” he said, softly.


	26. Interlude 3 Chapter 1- Prophecy, Part 1

It was the last days of a dying dream.

Two Eagles, scuffed and worn, the brown-orange dust of the Woomera desert creeping into every rivet, panel, and seam, lit their engines. The black-and-white stripes of mercenaries adorned the tails of their planes, the golden sun of rebellion emblazoned on their noses and their wings.

That ever-defiant sun was setting.

The pilot looked over his plane’s cockpit as he sat at the end of the runway, checking instruments and sensors. Everything seemed to be in working order, a shock given the mass exodus of mechanics and whatever parts they could take with them, a tide of doomed passengers leaping off the rail of a sinking ship.

Had he joined for the money? For the dream of Oceanian liberation? For the thrill? He wasn’t quite sure anymore.  _ Something like that, _ he thought.  _ A fat paycheck with a side of freedom sure sounded real good. Shame the Federation had to fuck that up nice. _ “Woomera ATC, this is Brimstone One. Requesting takeoff, runway one-two left.”

As he reached for the throttle, the pilot took in his surroundings. The sunset cast an orange glow across the sky as heat painted spectral ripples across the outback, the wind whipping up dust in its wake. His wingman, Merlin was off his left, and on the other runway, the last of the base’s myriad C/T-17s sat, stuffed to the brim. The cargo plane waited for its final passengers as the rest turned south, headed for what would hopefully be safety. “Brimstone One, Woomera Tower.” The ATC’s voice came through, a tinge of sorrow. “You two are cleared for takeoff… last time I’m ever gonna say that, probably.” The controller hung his head. “I’m sorry. I really am. We’re all in your hands now, Brimstone. Been an honor servin’.”

“Same to you, Tower.” Merlin’s voice crackled through the radio, the usually confident pilot betrayed by his tone as regret dug its claws into his words. “So long, buddy. ‘Til better days…”

“That’s us out, then. Hit the lights, Bryce. Let’s go.” Duffel bags of equipment zipped shut in the background. “This is Woomera Air Base of Free Oceania, signing off. Good hunting, Brimstone… You two always did have the devil’s own luck.” The ATC’s transmission cut out.

This wasn’t the first contract the mercenary had seen go south. The Federation had a habit of doing that when it got involved, but… this country was his home. He had fought across the world, in every hemisphere’s skies, and under the twinkling starlight of Crux was no different.  _ You’re never going home again, _ he knew. Yet, there was a creeping emptiness to it all, and he could muster no more emotion than a simple mutter. “Shame.”

The two fighters circled the airbase, their radars sweeping the skies. Most of the base’s fighter complement had joined the convoy of C/T-17s as an escort. They were the rearguard. Wasn’t the first time, but both the mercenaries knew this was the last time. The Federation had pushed the Oceanian forces, regular and mercenary alike, who hadn’t surrendered or defected down to the bay, and Woomera had been the last airbase between the Fed line and the port itself. The evacuation had begun, the remnants of Oceania’s naval forces trying desperately to contend with Federation naval power, to escape to wherever they could. 

“I’m getting a little nostalgic, buddy,” Merlin said. “Feels like yesterday we just got in here.”

“Nostalgic? For the start of a losing war?” The pilot shook his head. “If it weren’t for the money…”

“Really? Where’s your patriotism?” His wingman laughed. “Feels like  _ I _ care more about this country than you do.” 

“Probably ‘cuz ya do, Lazza, ya bloody tourist.” 

“It’s  _ Merlin _ in the air, buddy. Them’s the rules. You know that.”

“Don’t think there’s much point in rules, these days.” The merc glanced down at the F/C-15’s instruments.  _ Little low on twenty-mil rounds. Probably not much left on base. _

“I don’t think you ever did, Cerberus.”

They cruised, flying circles as the base’s evacuation saw its finale, the C/T-17 carrying the ATC soaring into the skies over the outback. “Well, Lazza, we’re not here to fuck spiders. No point stickin’ around, let’s form up with the transports.”

The wingman replied, trying, and failing, to stay composed. “Fuck spiders? You guys really  _ do  _ love your wacky expressions.”

“Oi, it’s just a way to say ‘fuck aroun--” The mercenary was cut off by the chirp of the radio. “Brimstone, this is AWACS Copperhead. We’ve got an inbound flight. Federation IFF. Tally five bandits. Two Flanker-Foxtrot, three Flanker-Alpha.”

“Shit,” Merlin said. “Cobalt?”

“Can’t make out a positive ID, Brimstone Two.” The AWACS seemed nervous. “But it’s possible.”

“It’s them.” Cerberus grit his teeth. “It has to be the bloody blue bastards.”

“You certain, buddy?”

“ _ Dead _ certain.”


	27. Interlude 3 Chapter 2- Prophecy, Part 2

The identity of the bandits wasn’t in question for very long. The radio crackled, and their AWACS’ voice came through clear. “Brimstone, the Feds are transmitting on an open channel… sure sounds like your Peacekeeper pals.”

“Good,” Cerberus’ voice dripped with the exact fury and hatred such a callsign would evoke. “Then it ends here. Today.”

“Look around, buddy.” Merlin flicked his radio to the open frequency. “Not many other chances to end this.” He sighed. “Well… let’s hear ‘em out.”

“I hope you’re listening, _Mercenaries._ ” The Magadanian-accented voice on the other side of the radio was suave, self-assured. “I always knew _you_ would end this way.” The Peacekeeper chuckled to himself.

The pilot didn’t give him the benefit of a response.

“I’ve had no greater satisfaction than to watch you cowards turn tail and _run_.” The smug smirk on his face could be heard through the radio. “Watch your step… you may trip on the corpses you left in your wake.”

“Well, that’s him, alright.” Merlin grumbled. “I’ve heard enough of that condescending bastard for two lifetimes now. Why don’t we shut him up, huh?”

“Yeah,” the pilot replied. “I could go for that.”

“Let’s fuck ‘em up.”

The F/C-15s and the Flankers burned towards each other, the distance closing as they entered into weapons range. 

“Fight’s on,” Merlin said, a steely determination entering his voice. 

The pilot replied. “Fight’s on.” He thumbed the selector switch to MLAA and watched as the locks sprung to life on his radar’s display. This was about to turn into a furball, he knew, and he didn’t want to be carrying six MLAAs when it did. “Brimstone 1,” he said, pushing in the button on the stick. “Fox three by four.”

“Good separation, Cerberus,” Copperhead radioed in. “But we won’t be sticking ‘round much longer. We’re headed south, n’you two are moving out of our radar range.” The AWACS operator sighed. “Hate to hang ya out to dry, but them’s the breaks. We’ll be out of range in… about a minute and a half.”

“Shit,” Merlin said. “Well, that’s just great. Brimstone 2, Fox three by three.”

The sky was blanketed in missiles, mercenary and Federation alike, as the two sides went defensive, dumping chaff in their wake, the harsh sunset reflecting off the metal ribbons. “Holy _fuck_ ,” the AWACS said. “They just dumped twenty-four MLAAs at you on varying tracks. They’re trying to overlap no-escape zones. Ya better break, if ya know what’s good for ya.” 

“Clever bastards,” the pilot replied. “Haul ass, Merlin.”

“Little close for comfort,” the other mercenary’s missile alarms bled through the radio. “Lemme focus.”

Cerberus turned his attention to his own warning receiver, and watched as the annular warhead of a MLAA missile only narrowly missed his plane. Missiles sailed by, rocking his plane with shockwaves. The AWACS’ Oceanian accent only barely managed to outcompete the sound of explosions for his attention. “Looks like you trashed ‘em, Brimstone. Close one. Unfortunately, this is where we part ways. Good hunting, lads.”

“See ya on the other side, Copperhead.” Merlin snapped off a cocky salute, even though he knew the AWACS couldn’t see him. 

The fight had inched ever closer, his radar warning receiver alerting him to another batch of MLAAs inbound. _Don’t want to be on the back foot going into the merge,_ he thought, firing off another salvo of MLAAs and calling out for his wingman, “Brimstone One, fox three by two. Brimstone One skosh!” _But we don’t have much of a choice._

His wingman had done the same, the two Eagles clean of active-guidance missiles. They turned, dumping chaff in their wake, diving for the backscatter of the ground. When they had trashed their missiles, they pulled up and broke their formation, checking their radars.

“Shit, Cerberus. We splashed two of ‘em! Who was that, ya think?” Merlin smirked, thumbing the selector switch to let the whine of infrared-guided missiles fill his headset. 

“Don’t know,” the pilot replied. “Don’t care. Long as I get the bastard-in-chief.”

The other mercenary chuckled. “We'll split the credit on those two. I’ll leave the lead to you, buddy.” 

“Of course.” The open channel echoed with the anger of the Federation Peacekeeper. “Was the blood of three of Magadan’s finest sons and daughters not enough?” Cobalt One scoffed. “But I look at what you did to _your own_ nation… and I _remember_. The oceans themselves could not quench your thirst.”

“God, I hate it when they monologue,” Merlin mumbled. “It’s so… so, _annoying_.”

The pilot on the other end of the radio had no plans of stopping. “How much did that earn you? I hope they already paid. Would you really have bloodied your hands so with nothing to show for it, _Mercenary?_ ”

He preempted his more talkative wingman with a sigh. “Shut ya’ trap, Merlin.” Cerberus said. “Don’t feed ‘em.”

“Damn,” Merlin replied. “I was in the mood to talk shit. Entering the merge. Let’s show these Fed assholes some _fireworks._ ”


	28. Interlude 3 Chapter 3- Prophecy, Part 3

For the first time in the pilot’s life, he finally heard his wingman shut up. The last he’d heard out of Merlin besides a missile or guns callout was “Damn, these guys are good.” 

He didn’t mind, but the unusual silence was deafening.

The constant beep of the radar warning receiver had drilled its way into his skull, echoing in his mind, crowding out anything besides the fight at hand. The grey-and-blue Federation Flankers pulled impossibly tight turns, the familiar asymmetry of their tactics laying down a rhythm for the elaborate airborne dance. The Feds would abuse their AoA delimiters while he and his wingman would exploit the lulls in the nimbler fighters’ energy. As Cerberus checked behind his plane, he noticed one of the Cobalt Squadron Sk.27s on his tail, sending bursts of thirty-millimeter rounds over his wings. He rolled the stick, pulling into a barrel roll over the top of his flight path. The nimbler Sk.27 would have no choice but to follow; and after glancing at his instruments, his suspicions had been confirmed. The weight of the F/C-15’s MLAAs were gone; and there had not been enough fuel to go around, his tank sitting half empty. He grinned to himself.

_ Set ‘em up… _ He glanced over his shoulder, the Sk.27 having taken the bait.  _ Watch ‘em fall. _

The Flanker pursued his Eagle, rolling into a scissor pattern with Cerberus’ plane. The Federation pilot, though, had another foe to contend with: gravity. As a heat-seeking missile sailed past his cockpit and rocked his plane with the explosion’s shockwave, the Sk.27’s pilot was struggling to keep pace with the power of his abnormally light Eagle’s engines.  _ Feds run their loadouts heavy... _ the mercenary thought to himself.  _ Never stood a chance in rolling scissors. _

The other pilot spiraled with the mercenary, but their loops were erratically dropping further and further towards the ground.  _ What’s the old saying? Only way out of rolling scissors is a split-S and a lot of hope. _ The mercenary chuckled to himself.  _ Not much hope where you’re going, Fed. _

He glanced towards the top of his canopy, a full view of the other fighter and the ground below, as the Fed flipped that caution-taped switch and punched himself into a ludicrously tight turn to avoid a sharp, sudden stop of a different kind. As the mercenary, suspended much higher in the air, pulled back on the stick and watched the HUD’s reticle ease over the Flanker, he smiled.  _ Show’s over, son. _

A single tap of the trigger, and the rotary gun sent his twenty-millimeter regards. 

He didn’t bother watching the plane burn. As soon as he had seen the engine explode and the pilot bail, he moved on with the ruthless efficiency of a career killer. Every kill was billable, and even though he most likely wasn’t going to be paid for this— all the people signing his checks were dead— not that he, or any other mercenary worth their salt, took checks in the first place. He didn’t mind, and he’d gladly do this job  _ pro bono _ . Killing the man on the other end of the radio would immortalize him forever. Any mercenary who could slay Magadan’s dragon— and bring back the flight recorder to prove it— would never have to worry about finding work again. As long as there would be a Federation to hate, people would hate the Federation, and those who did would pay any price they could for the pilot capable of defeating the Federation’s most infamous Peacekeeper. Not to mention the immense satisfaction of killing the bastard who had shot down so many of his colleagues.

_ Speak of the devil. _ The radio crackled on that open channel, and the self-assured, suave,  _ taunting _ voice of Zmei, the Magadanian Peacekeeper, the terror of Oceania’s skies, the bane of mercenaries, and the greatest adversary the pilot had ever met, broke through the static.

“I should ask, Cerberus.” He chuckled. “How much for your wingman’s head?”

_ Fine. I’ll bite. _ “Not for sale, Fed.”

“Oh, you can drop the act. Don’t bother pretending to have  _ honor _ . You have nothing more than convictions.”

The mercenary didn’t answer.

“In truth,” the Peacekeeper continued. “I am so, so  _ glad _ that you two did not take the Federation’s  _ generous _ … counter-offer. A bit  _ too _ generous, in my eyes. Many of your colleagues may have leapt from their sinking ship. But a rat is still a  _ rat. _ And I do not believe such a talented exterminator as  _ you _ needs to be reminded of the fitting end for  _ vermin. _ Fox two.”

The pilot went defensive, evading, dumping flares and watching the missile shoot wide.  _ Missed, bastard.  _ As he smiled, his radar started to tell a different story.

“Shit, Cerberus,” Merlin said. “He’s on me! Cover me, I’ve almost got the other one.”

“On the way,” he replied, turning and burning for the other planes, but he could not stop what was happening. He couldn’t launch missiles if he didn’t want to risk hitting his wingman, and the cannon was too unpredictable at this range. As he slammed the afterburners, all he could do was watch. “ _ C’mon! _ —” Merlin shouted over the radio. “Got ‘em! Breaki—”

There were two explosions, one ahead of the other. Then there was static.


	29. Interlude 3, Chapter 4- Prophecy, Part 4

“So...“ Nicole stared at the wall. “You know, I should have known. The way you’d always get nervous whenever I asked where Larry was.”

The other end of the phone hung in silence. “Yeah. I tried not to lie to you. But I didn’t tell you the truth, either.”

She just let the static crackle into her ear.

“He never told you, huh? Always did seem like the kind of man to gloat. Guess he kept good on his promise.”

"What promise?" She raised an eyebrow, shock giving way to curiosity.

* * *

The pilot watched as the Eagle burst into flames, a terrible, horrifying rage building inside of him as the radio filled his ears with static that gave way to that voice.  _ That. Damned. Voice. _

"So," the edges of a rough chuckle snuck their way past the radio's noise. "We finally got one of the  _ rats _ ." A somber seriousness crept in, taking the pilot by surprise, as his adversary seemed to mumble to himself. "I'm… sorry, Katya. But your… your sacrifice _ … _ " He took a heavy breath.

The enemy ace shook his head, checking his radar. “You and me, now,  _ mercenary. _ ”

True to his name, his hate escaping his lips, the mercenary pilot called Cerberus growled, the fiery rage of Hell turning his mind to one, sole, overwhelming thought.  _ The Fed dies. Now. _

The two planes stuck to each other in a dance of knives, tracer rounds cutting across the setting sun. “I know you. There are  _ always _ pilots like you, mercenary.”

The pilot huffed. “I don’t think you do.” He pulled his plane, the grey-and-blue-painted Sk.37 inching into view as he watched vapor condense across the Peacekeeper’s wings, the over-G alarms blaring through the radio. 

“You think you’re above judgement.” The Magadanian grit his teeth, practically about to spit into the mic. “You care about two things. Money, and legacy. But  _ consequences _ ? Those aren’t even a consideration!” The Peacekeeper took a deep breath, furious and dripping with venom.

The pilot huffed into his oxygen mask, tightening his grip on the stick as he watched the G-indicator on his HUD climb, pushing the Eagle's airframe to its limits to even try and keep up with the nimbler plane, the Sk.37 turning into him.  _ 2.5 _ .  _ 3.9. 5.7. 6.3— _

The pilot shouted, the blood-curdling rage shaking the hardened plastic of the respirator, as he squeezed the trigger, howling like a demon, his vision red not from negative-G but from bloodlust. Tracer rounds ripped across his vision as the blue-tipped wings of the F/C-15 passed across the top of the grey-camouflaged Sk.37, pilots locking eyes but for a moment as they shot by.

"Look around,  _ mercenary _ !" The radio crackled. "See the smouldering remains of a shattered nation? Behold, the work of  _ your _ hands!" The Peacekeeper snarled. "If you  _ ever _ have to ask yourself why the flag of the Federation still flies over Oceania… you have only yourself and your greed to blame!"

"Greed?" The merc grit his teeth, almost growling. "Last I checked, you bastards funneled weapons to the Loyalists for years! It's your goddamn greed for  _ power _ that started this whole bloody war!" The next turn was coming up, and he let the G's kick his chest as he pulled towards the Sk.37, the lightened load of his plane the only thing that let him keep up with the impossibly sharp turns of the Peacekeeper's jet.

"How many times I have heard  _ that _ sorry excuse,  _ murderer _ . You say it was to break the Loyalists' will to fight. But can you see inside a soul,  _ mercenary? _ Can you tell a Loyalist from a Separatist from thirty thousand feet? Can you  _ see _ allegiances from on high?" The pilot fought against the force of the G's, the edges of his vision starting to turn black, the metal of his wings creaking. The HUD filled his vision, the radar gunsight ever so slowly creeping over the Sk.37, its pilot struggling out taunting, haunting words.

"This is my promise to you,  _ mercenary. _ I will crush you under the weight of your sins." Heavy breathing filled the radio. "I will strike you from every record. Your legend will be stillborn, your myth  _ shot _ in the cradle. I  _ know _ you, mercenary. You seek glory. Fame. Wealth. I cannot strip you of your blood money. But I hold the pen of history. I will leave you with only blood."

_ SHOOT _ , it prompted him. He obliged, pulling the trigger past the detent, the spinning  _ whirrr _ of the rotary gun shaking the airframe. Where there should have been a storm of vengeant fire, there was nothing but a few stray tracers followed by nothing but the roar of the engines and the hum of the spinning barrels. He shook his head.  _ GUN 000 _ , the HUD read.

The mercenary's breath shook. Shouting in frustration, he pulled back hard on the flight stick, pitching to plant his velocity vector right on the Peacekeeper's plane, before burying the errant, rage-blinded thought and letting it go. 

_ I… no. I won't die today. Even if it means that Feddie bastard… lives. _

He checked the fuel state.  _ Not much, but… _ he resigned himself to his fate.  _ It'll have to be enough.  _ The Flanker turned in on its prey, and the Peacekeeper found his adversary turning away.

"Coward!" The Peacekeeper snarled. "A cornered mercenary, running like a rat. I see the act is over."

Tracers streaked over his vision as he jinked the Eagle, burning as hard as he possibly could to run as far as he possibly could. 

"A legion of damned souls owe their torment to you,  _ mercenary _ ! Compared to their curse, I am but a  _ mercy _ !" More gunfire. He rolled the plane this way and that, the nose of the Eagle entwined in a tango with thirty-millimeter rounds.

The Peacekeeper shouted, rage dripping from his mic. "Quit running! Accept defeat! Face justice!  _ Die, coward!" _

Another burst of gunfire. Another narrow escape.

"No," the Peacekeeper mumbled to an unheard command, the master caution blaring in the radio. "I've got him right here..."

"Shut up about the meter, I  _ have _ enough fuel! I can take him down and come home— I know it's tight! I can make it!"

Over the radio, the Peacekeeper snarled. "God-dammit!... Acknowledged, Crystal Kingdom."

His tone turned stone-cold. "You should have taken my offer,  _ mercenary. _ It would have been an easier way out. Remember my promise. I am a man of my  _ word _ ."

The Flanker turned off his tail, a final, parting gift of tracers for the mercenary to jink and dodge. 

As the sun set over Oceania, all there was left for the mercenary to do was wither and die.


	30. Interlude 3, Chapter 5- The Emergency

Now was a weird time for an emergency meeting, especially because nothing was happening. 

The past week had been a quiet one, as in the aftermath of the, well, clusterfuck— some people were calling it a showdown, but she preferred the term clusterfuck— over the Bering Strait, neither they nor the Feds really had enough intact and well supplied air power in one place to actually _do anything._ Newcomers to Armstrong had come and gone en masse, and rumor had it that the base was being geared up for a CIF strike on Magadan. _Fuck,_ she shook her head in disbelief. _Are we getting called up to go on the offensive?_ She glanced around the ping-pong table at the other five— no, wait. _Four._

_Zip._

Her uncle's story of losing his wingman hadn't exactly softened the loss of her squadmate, and Nicole couldn't help but think that Uncle Brian's chosen coping mechanism of spiraling into an alcoholic mess for a few years probably wasn't particularly productive, even if it was rather tempting. Much to her disappointment, though, there was seemingly no way to get drunk around here— that she could find, anyways— and she doubted repeating the liquor-fueled disciplinary screwups that earned her the callsign "I Require Intensive Supervision" would earn her any brownie points with the Lieutenant Colonel.

She caught a few wandering glances resting in the place Zip would have been standing, and like her, none of them let their gaze stay there very long. She offered up a silent prayer that someone would break the eerie quiet, and mercifully, the Major did. 

Or at least, _a_ Major did.

"I bet you're wondering why I called all of you here at such an early hour," the annoyingly smooth voice of the familiar AWACS operator prompted Nicole to look around the room in a confused daze, rubbing her eyes as they came into focus on one Matthew 'Bluejay' Hajj, rather than the expected Alana 'BASH' Hawthorne. Nicole raised an eyebrow and sighed. _I'm too tired for this shit._

Dagger grumbled. "Look, man, I'm sorry—"

"You knew the terms of the deal, Ashido. Not my fault you fucked it up." The AWACS crossed his arms. "If Sergeant Wilhelm catches you, you're shit outta luck. Should know by now that she doesn't fuck around when she catches someone ratfucking the store room."

"Sergeant who?" Nicole cocked her head, an eyebrow raised in inquisition. "Keep in mind, I don't exactly _know_ people around here. Even after they let me move freely, half the fucking base won't even look at me."

"Oh, they won't look at you? Then, my friends," the AWACS looked around the table. "I think we have our replacement."

All eyes were on her. "Replacement? Do _any_ of you mind telling me what the hell is going on? I thought this meeting was an emergency, and all you guys are doing are rambling on about some kind of deal."

"No, Bluejay, I think you're right," Dagger said, tapping her chin in thought. "She's got the right skillset."

"Yeah," Burn added with a glare. "If the coffee raid is any indication, I think she'll be good at this."

"Motherfucker. You told him about the coffee thing?" She glared at Burn, pointing at Bluejay. Burn shrugged, and Bluejay held up a cheerfully colored can of Wired!® with a smile. "I already got my drink of choice. Secret's safe with me, Spook." She shuddered at the thought; the twisted psyche of anyone who actually enjoyed that drink— if you could even call it that— terrified her.

The others continued to ignore her. "Wait," Jackal gave Burn a light punch on the shoulder. " _You_ want _her_ to do it? Don't think she's gonna poison us or something?" Burn simply glared back, and grumbled.

"Then it's decided." Major Hajj broke into a major smile. 

" _What's_ fucking decided?" Nicole slammed her hands down on the ping-pong table. "For the love of all that's holy, will you assholes tell me _anything?_ "

Dagger crossed her arms. "The mantle falls to you, o fucking new girl." A wide grin alighted on Lieutenant Ashido's lips. "The burden— nay, the sacred duty of Snacko is yours to bear, Spook."

"Snacko?" Nicole smiled. "Wait, so you're letting me go off base, go into town or something and get the snacks? I was Snacko for my old squadron, it was a pretty good gig—"

"What?" Bluejay laughed. "No. _Hell_ no. We can't get into town. If we could get into town, your little coffee raid wouldn't be necessary. But the Feds and their strategic bombers had other ideas, and it's not like town is _close,_ either. When the PX ran out of stock, we were stuck with whatever we could find in those cargo planes and what little came in with the weapons and fuel." The AWACS put his hands on the table, leaning in. "But you've all been paying attention, I assume? Things have changed. We've got a supply line again, the C/T-17s haven't stopped coming in since the whole… y'know. The party in our backyard. And right now, the only place with extra food… is the storeroom. There's your pile of treasure."

"Too bad there's a dragon guarding it," Dagger grumbled. "Now I'm stuck on latrine duty for two weeks, and she won't let me within spitting distance of the storeroom."

"That's where you come in, Spook," Bluejay stared her down, a shit-eating, Wired!®-drinking grin on his face. "If half the base won't look at you, let's hope ol' Tech Sergeant Grouchy won't, either. How'd you manage to get caught, anyway? She's asleep half the time."

"Oh yeah, Bluejay?" Dagger scowled. "Well, I'll have you know the other half of the time is whenever anyone is within a twenty foot radius of the supply room." She turned to Nicole. "Good fucking luck, Snacko."

"Uhhh…" Nicole raised an eyebrow in confusion. "...Thanks? But I don't entirely get what any of this has to do with Snacko duty."

"Well, since we can't make it out to town," Jackal chimed in. "What we've been doing is stealing just a _little_ food from the storeroom."

"Oh, joy. Ratfucking." Nicole sighed.

"Funny." Burn chuckled. "A spook, _rat_ fucking. Fitting."

"Oh, fuck off, blondie." Nicole gave her fellow officer a less respectful type of salute.

"Kids, kids, calm down. I _will_ turn this ping-pong table around." The AWACS held out a checklist. "Your mission, and you don't get a choice on whether or not to accept it, is to get everything on that list. Think you can do it, Snacko?"

"Uhh…" she read off the list. _Jalapeño squeeze cheese, chocolate, potato chips…_ All stuff that could be found in the rations the storeroom would likely finally have in spades. "Yeah, I think I can do that."

"Good. You're on the clock, if you don't want to get caught. Wilhelm's shift starts in an hour. Get movin', Snacko—"

Burn cut him off. "SLJO."

"Huh?" Nicole raised an eyebrow, stopping her in her tracks as she glanced back through the doorway. "What was that, Burn?"

"We've been down one ever since…" He glared at her. "Zip wasn't the first person we lost. Last guy who was Polaris Six was our SLJO. Shitty Little Jobs Officer. Bluejay, I recommend we fold Snacko and SLJO into one position. For Spook," Burn smirked. " _Maybe_ you'll work off your sentence."

"Motion seconded, Bernitz." The AWACS grinned, mischievously. "Have fun… SLJO."

"I don't get paid enough for this shit." Nicole mumbled to herself with a grumble and a sigh.

"Correction," the Major retorted with a light chuckle. "You're not getting paid at all. Now get a move on, ol' Bluejay's hungry."

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has supplementary character profiles based on Ace Combat Zero's Assault Records. 
> 
> [SPOILER WARNING: contains mild spoilers up to the current chapter!]
> 
> View them here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XEQFaqxrTdZpz-HGL4Ju7O7PWJRd1oYHHRxsj-xtL90/edit?usp=sharing


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